She asks while I'm signing in, writing my name on the line. #2. We've already said the standard hellos and she's already inquired about my well being, twice: a crease unfolded, paint blobs pressed into the paper, symmetrical.
Hey, I was wondering: you have how many kids again?
I look up. I haven't written the last few letters of my last name so I hover above the paper. Four, I reply. This is a statistic that startles me, still.
And do you mind me asking -- how old are you?
I don't mind. I wonder about this myself sometimes. I see the lines around my mouth, my eyes. There are callouses on my feet, dead skin that I can peel with my fingernails if I dig hard enough. Sometimes I am so, so tired but I can't close my eyes because then another huge chunk of time will pass. I try to breathe evenly.
But I also know how she sees me. And it's not like that. I finish writing my name.
31, I reply.
Really? I would have guessed 25...you look so young...which is why I wondered how many kids you have because I thought you said four last time we talked but it just didn't make sense...
We both laugh. I tell her their ages and something about getting married in college and having kids right away, a little unexpected but not unwanted. My mouth keeps moving. She comments about how great it is that I can get away and come to yoga class. I heartily agree.
Now she knows everything about me.
Now she knows nothing about me.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Monday, October 1, 2012
when she can't sleep
I press my forehead into the door frame, one foot in her bedroom, one in the hallway. This is not going as planned.
There's a wall in front of me and I don't see any footholds. It looks slick with precipitation. Or perspiration. Mine? Hers? My eyes are dead in their sockets. I let them rest on the floor.
The light from the living room flows down the hall. The fireplace cuts an angular shadow, a line between light and dark, a branch across the stream.
I don't look up for a long time. What's there to see, anyway? Me, making mistakes. Her, internalizing them.
The wood grain laps at my ankle. My foot sinks into the golden sand.
There's a wall in front of me and I don't see any footholds. It looks slick with precipitation. Or perspiration. Mine? Hers? My eyes are dead in their sockets. I let them rest on the floor.
The light from the living room flows down the hall. The fireplace cuts an angular shadow, a line between light and dark, a branch across the stream.
I don't look up for a long time. What's there to see, anyway? Me, making mistakes. Her, internalizing them.
The wood grain laps at my ankle. My foot sinks into the golden sand.
Friday, September 28, 2012
reflection
The bathroom light -- necessary but it throws flames into my eyes. I squint so hard it makes a sound.
The mirror -- unavoidable. I see my face through a crust of blurry vision. Mossy and far away. Pillow lines map the path the night has taken, all angles and straight edges. One intersects my eye. Later, at breakfast, she wonders if it's a scrape.
No, I tell her. But who knows, I think, how deep it really runs. I can't feel a thing.
The mirror -- unavoidable. I see my face through a crust of blurry vision. Mossy and far away. Pillow lines map the path the night has taken, all angles and straight edges. One intersects my eye. Later, at breakfast, she wonders if it's a scrape.
No, I tell her. But who knows, I think, how deep it really runs. I can't feel a thing.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
about an owl
The sun rolls over and pulls the cloud cover up to her neck. It's morning but she's not ready to get up.
I am, though. Ready. Despite the sleep stuck in the corners of my eyes. I open the door into the morning that pretends to be night. I haven't brushed my teeth and I'm wearing a winter cap over my sleep shuffled hair: the season has turned chilly, at least for today. For right now. The dog snuffs with anticipation or expectation or maybe just because the insides of her nostrils are shocked by the air temperature. It was just a few minutes ago that she was asleep with her nose tucked into her knee, like a bird without any wings.
Then out from the watery darkness comes a voice, stuttering over a single word, a flashlight beam flickering.
Who-who who?
I haven't heard him speak in so long. I didn't know how much I missed him. Where has he been living? Has he been talking to anyone else? Have they been able to answer? Do they understand the question?
I haven't been thinking about it at all, and now he's asking every day. There must be answers somewhere, under these layers of hair and skin and blood and bone but I'm afraid to open my mouth. The thing that comes out might not be words at all. A scream? Vomit? Nothing pretty. Or maybe a single exhale, a puff of breath, a wing shifting in the dark.
The dog is already at the bottom of the driveway, waiting. I inhale deeply and hold it, soaking my lungs in night. Ink fills the sponge.
I am, though. Ready. Despite the sleep stuck in the corners of my eyes. I open the door into the morning that pretends to be night. I haven't brushed my teeth and I'm wearing a winter cap over my sleep shuffled hair: the season has turned chilly, at least for today. For right now. The dog snuffs with anticipation or expectation or maybe just because the insides of her nostrils are shocked by the air temperature. It was just a few minutes ago that she was asleep with her nose tucked into her knee, like a bird without any wings.
Then out from the watery darkness comes a voice, stuttering over a single word, a flashlight beam flickering.
Who-who who?
I haven't heard him speak in so long. I didn't know how much I missed him. Where has he been living? Has he been talking to anyone else? Have they been able to answer? Do they understand the question?
I haven't been thinking about it at all, and now he's asking every day. There must be answers somewhere, under these layers of hair and skin and blood and bone but I'm afraid to open my mouth. The thing that comes out might not be words at all. A scream? Vomit? Nothing pretty. Or maybe a single exhale, a puff of breath, a wing shifting in the dark.
The dog is already at the bottom of the driveway, waiting. I inhale deeply and hold it, soaking my lungs in night. Ink fills the sponge.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
flat
In my dream, I see an old friend. She smiles and her teeth are lasagna noodles. Pathetic, I mumble to my imagination. She dutifully shifts the scene. I see myself standing in Jurassic Park with a dog on a leash. I release the dog into an enclosed ring. Dog vs. raptor? Stupid, I sigh. But I let it unfold. In the dark I bandage a gushing neck. My hands are wet and warm.
I wake into daylight with eyes gummed and puffy. The fan oscillates, rippling the sheet that covers my legs. I see the pale blue sky through the curtain crack, through the trees. Smeary without my glasses.
***
I fall asleep on the couch, on my back, with my arms hugging my chest. They're sitting on the other end, huddled around the iPad, watching a video of their own making. I float above them. Their giggles echo from a tin can, far below me.
Someone brushes against my foot and pierces the pontoon supporting me. A gash through my skin. I slam into myself and open my eyes. They don't see me and there is no blood. Dizziness shrouds my head and it takes me a long time unwrap that stuffy gauze.
***
The half moon, she states from the back seat. I look away from the road and see it too. A circle cut in half with a stark center line, the dark side suggested. I could stare and stare but the ground is racing under my wheels and anything could jump from the shadows so it's just a glance and I'm back to watching the white dashed lines reel on by. It's beautiful, isn't it, I reply. That's all I can think to say.
***
I move slowly through the grass, eyes on the ground, hunting for dog poop. I hate it when they step in it.
A few steps and my toes are all wet, my sandals soaked. The grass is dark and cold. I imagine this condensation as drops squeezed out of the air during the night by thousands of invisible hands -- magical milk. Suddenly I want to lay in the dew. Roll around in it and drink it down. It will fill me.
And then I step in an overlooked pile. I finish the job and leave my shoes by the door. I'll deal with you later. I say it to myself, to the shoes.
I wake into daylight with eyes gummed and puffy. The fan oscillates, rippling the sheet that covers my legs. I see the pale blue sky through the curtain crack, through the trees. Smeary without my glasses.
***
I fall asleep on the couch, on my back, with my arms hugging my chest. They're sitting on the other end, huddled around the iPad, watching a video of their own making. I float above them. Their giggles echo from a tin can, far below me.
Someone brushes against my foot and pierces the pontoon supporting me. A gash through my skin. I slam into myself and open my eyes. They don't see me and there is no blood. Dizziness shrouds my head and it takes me a long time unwrap that stuffy gauze.
***
The half moon, she states from the back seat. I look away from the road and see it too. A circle cut in half with a stark center line, the dark side suggested. I could stare and stare but the ground is racing under my wheels and anything could jump from the shadows so it's just a glance and I'm back to watching the white dashed lines reel on by. It's beautiful, isn't it, I reply. That's all I can think to say.
***
I move slowly through the grass, eyes on the ground, hunting for dog poop. I hate it when they step in it.
A few steps and my toes are all wet, my sandals soaked. The grass is dark and cold. I imagine this condensation as drops squeezed out of the air during the night by thousands of invisible hands -- magical milk. Suddenly I want to lay in the dew. Roll around in it and drink it down. It will fill me.
And then I step in an overlooked pile. I finish the job and leave my shoes by the door. I'll deal with you later. I say it to myself, to the shoes.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
adapting
When she asks, it’s always at the wrong time: I’ve just
plunged my hands into the ground beef or I’m nursing the baby or I’m finally
eating lunch myself. Don’t forget to
check on the flower, Mama.
I tell her that I will. Just
remind me later, when I’m not in the middle of something.
It’s been a week since, inexplicably and at random, she went
outside on her own to pick that flower. A week since I sat down with just her
and unscrewed the wingnuts on my flower press, the one my dad made for me when
I was a kid. She helped me position the petals just so and nodded when I told
her we would check on it in a couple days when it had fully dried.
It will be too fragile
to play with or hold too much, I cautioned. But we could pick up some laminating paper and make it into a bookmark
or something. She nodded, serious and committed.
Now we’re running errands and I’m listing where we need to
go. Pick up the pictures we ordered. Buy
birthday cards for your cousins. Return books to the library. Get a gallon of
milk.
And laminating paper!
She calls from the back of the van. But I really can’t manage an extra stop.
One more in and out of the car, bucking and unbuckling, baby in the sling. Hold
hands. Look for cars.
Not this time,
sweetheart. Sorry. I can’t see her face in the rear view. I have to keep my
eyes on the road.
***
There’s an ache in my sternum sometimes. Right here, in the
bone that joins my ribs. I only feel it occasionally. Like when I’m easing the
sleep-heavy baby out of my arm. Or when I flop onto the couch after the final goodnight and lean to the right, sinking
all weight into my elbow. Or when I roll my shoulders down and back, filling my
lungs with air and pressing my heart forward. There it is, a twinge, deep in
the bone.
I think something in there must be clenched too tight.
***
The girl jogs past me. No, she’s a woman. Young, yes. But
taller than me. She moves fast. I don’t see her face.
Her ponytail hangs long and paints brushstrokes on the nape
of her bare neck. Her running shorts are loosely cut so they swish side to side
as she moves. She wears just a sports bra on top and I see the sweat shining on
her shoulders, her spine, and in beads down the small of her back.
The path curves her out of sight and by the time I reach the
straightaway she’s gone.
My feet feel heavy and hot inside my own running shoes. I
only lace them up for walking anymore. A couple months ago, I tried to pick up
running where I had left it in the winter when the holidays and my growing
pregnant belly crowded out possibility. But my body balked at the root of
things: ankles, Achilles, feet. So I walk. Baby on my chest, dog at my side.
The tall grasses that line the path rattle in the breeze,
brown and brittle. It hasn’t rained in a month. Things are lush along the stream,
but I haven’t gotten that far yet.
But here is something: some kind of weed, growing right at
the edge of the gravel. It’s stem is more like a stalk, thick as my thumb, and
it tops my shoulder. Its root must tap a source the grasses can’t touch.
***
The baby sleeps. I try to set her down but she senses the
shift. No one else is home so I indulge in this: I lay her down on my bed and
curl around her. With my pinkie in her mouth she stays asleep. The pad of my
finger rests on the roof of her mouth and she pulls hard with her tongue from
where she floats in the stream between awake and asleep. I close my eyes and go there too.
When I return to myself, there’s a cramp in my wrist and I
know I should start dinner and more than anything right now I’d rather be
reading a book. So I wiggle out of her grip. She stirs. I tense. I don’t want
to be stuck here.
But her hand comes to her face and finds her mouth. Reflex.
Instinct. She doesn’t part her lips but the surface tension parts and she slips
back down into the deep. I watch her breathe then ease myself out of the room.
***
I sit. My mind is an empty room, paneled with floor to
ceiling with windows, forming an octagonal shape. No, not octagonal…but…some other -agonal…one
that means: uncountable. I sit in the center of the room.
Outside the windows it’s black. Side to side, above, below.
Blacker than black. Delineated in space but part of space. I breathe and
breathe and breathe.
When I open my eyes I see my legs crossed in front of me.
The couch in shadow to my right.
If there’s a door to this room it doesn’t have a knob. But I
can still go through.
Monday, July 2, 2012
invisible
It's quiet. My thoughts tiptoe around the room on silent bare feet, nosing into all the corners, avoiding all the cobwebs. I follow them with my eyes.
It's dim. The curtains are drawn against the afternoon sun but it barges through the unmet seam and prints streaks across the ceiling. Shhhhhh, I whisper to the light. She's falling asleep. The baby rests her palm against my breast.
The shadows suck the life out of these spring colored walls. But the muted light illuminates a subtle topography and I can see subterranean things. Like strokes of drywall mudding and a hint of the studs behind it all, holding everything up. My eyes stop here. I close them. I don't have to speak incantations to conjure something up.
Two carpenters hammer this wall into being. One crouches low, cursing under his breath about nothing he wants to explain to me right now. Sweat darkens his shirt between his shoulder blades and I can see the outline of his wallet sunk in his back pocket. The other man works a lump of tobacco in his mouth, moving it to the other side of his jaw. He spits into the framework, staining the wood. He grips the board in front of him and looks up at the sun, estimating its progress. He's thinking about lunch. I wonder how much piss they built into these walls.
The baby's suckling slows and stops. She closes her lips. I'm not quite ready to put her down.
The air conditioning kicks on, changing the caliber of silence in the room. The curtains react to the moving air. My thoughts do, too.
I wonder what it was like for her, living here alone for forty-some years. Where did she place her potted plants? Against which wall did she sleep? Her skin cells are still in our duct work. Maybe her ghost drifts through sometimes, too.
I trace my thumb lightly across the baby's forehead and rest it between her eyes. I imagine an invisible fingerprint. She sighs in her sleep but does not wake.
It's dim. The curtains are drawn against the afternoon sun but it barges through the unmet seam and prints streaks across the ceiling. Shhhhhh, I whisper to the light. She's falling asleep. The baby rests her palm against my breast.
The shadows suck the life out of these spring colored walls. But the muted light illuminates a subtle topography and I can see subterranean things. Like strokes of drywall mudding and a hint of the studs behind it all, holding everything up. My eyes stop here. I close them. I don't have to speak incantations to conjure something up.
Two carpenters hammer this wall into being. One crouches low, cursing under his breath about nothing he wants to explain to me right now. Sweat darkens his shirt between his shoulder blades and I can see the outline of his wallet sunk in his back pocket. The other man works a lump of tobacco in his mouth, moving it to the other side of his jaw. He spits into the framework, staining the wood. He grips the board in front of him and looks up at the sun, estimating its progress. He's thinking about lunch. I wonder how much piss they built into these walls.
The baby's suckling slows and stops. She closes her lips. I'm not quite ready to put her down.
The air conditioning kicks on, changing the caliber of silence in the room. The curtains react to the moving air. My thoughts do, too.
I wonder what it was like for her, living here alone for forty-some years. Where did she place her potted plants? Against which wall did she sleep? Her skin cells are still in our duct work. Maybe her ghost drifts through sometimes, too.
I trace my thumb lightly across the baby's forehead and rest it between her eyes. I imagine an invisible fingerprint. She sighs in her sleep but does not wake.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
bad dreams
It's dark. I close my eyes but they dart with determination despite the pressure of my lids and lashes. Thoughts bounce in my head like bingo balls. Ricocheting. Random. My muscles grip the shape of the day gone by. I can't sleep.
And then the motion stops and a picture materializes, dredged up like a memory but dripping with the mist of another world. Mine but not mine.
I see a familiar street. It's sunny. The green of the trees and the white of the opposite house and the mottled grey of the pavement stand out with a sharpness that hurts my eyes. I feel her small hand in mine, twisting and pushing and letting go. She runs.
Her figure and the car that crushes her blur and blend into one thing. My heart stops in real time. The blood drains from all my extremities and I expect to see hers on the street. Her blond curls are dark and damp.
My mouth doesn't open and my body can't move. I want to die.
But then I feel the real world firm against the one foot still anchored there and I force my eyes open. I have time to exhale once before she screams for real. I bolt out of bed.
Her eyes are still closed. She cries in her sleep, stuck in a dream that holds her just below the surface.
Her curls are damp. I touch her forehead and her hand -- she's warm all over. The air is close and hot.
I carry her to the living room and stand her next to the laundry basket. She's quiet now, wavering and nearly asleep. I feel my way through the unfolded clothing for something cooler. A tank top, anything. I finally find a sleeveless dress and call that good enough.
I pull the too-hot nightgown over her head and she instinctively lifts her arms. I thread her head and arms through the dress and carry her back to her room. She rests on my shoulder. I ease her onto her pillow and she's asleep before I finish adjusting the fan to oscillate in her direction.
I watch her chest rise and fall. I wait for my breath to match hers. I go back to bed.
The ceiling is black and blank. I don't close my eyes.
Then I finally do.
In the morning, the sun trickles through the trees and puddles in the house. She smiles into the kitchen. I hug her hello.
And then the motion stops and a picture materializes, dredged up like a memory but dripping with the mist of another world. Mine but not mine.
I see a familiar street. It's sunny. The green of the trees and the white of the opposite house and the mottled grey of the pavement stand out with a sharpness that hurts my eyes. I feel her small hand in mine, twisting and pushing and letting go. She runs.
Her figure and the car that crushes her blur and blend into one thing. My heart stops in real time. The blood drains from all my extremities and I expect to see hers on the street. Her blond curls are dark and damp.
My mouth doesn't open and my body can't move. I want to die.
But then I feel the real world firm against the one foot still anchored there and I force my eyes open. I have time to exhale once before she screams for real. I bolt out of bed.
Her eyes are still closed. She cries in her sleep, stuck in a dream that holds her just below the surface.
Her curls are damp. I touch her forehead and her hand -- she's warm all over. The air is close and hot.
I carry her to the living room and stand her next to the laundry basket. She's quiet now, wavering and nearly asleep. I feel my way through the unfolded clothing for something cooler. A tank top, anything. I finally find a sleeveless dress and call that good enough.
I pull the too-hot nightgown over her head and she instinctively lifts her arms. I thread her head and arms through the dress and carry her back to her room. She rests on my shoulder. I ease her onto her pillow and she's asleep before I finish adjusting the fan to oscillate in her direction.
I watch her chest rise and fall. I wait for my breath to match hers. I go back to bed.
The ceiling is black and blank. I don't close my eyes.
Then I finally do.
In the morning, the sun trickles through the trees and puddles in the house. She smiles into the kitchen. I hug her hello.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
fishing
I walk the dog at dusk. No sunlight slants through the trees at this
hour. Shadows cover the path. Gnats thicken the air and I can't see them
until I'm within their cloud and one catches in the corner of my eye. A
tear blurs my vision. I press the heel of my palm against my eyelid and
stop still. I blink and blink and blink. When I brush my cheek the bug
sticks to my finger, black and immobile, drowned in holy water. I wipe it on my sleeve and walk on.
***
I've been reading this book about writing, and it's making me almost as happy as actually writing something myself. Almost. The author's best advice is to just write because you might pour out six pages of crap before you find that one, glinting gem of a sentence that was the whole point of the thing and never would have bubbled to the surface if you didn't decant all that froth from the top first. So I woke up early this morning and felt awake and alive for once so I'm sitting here with my cup of coffee and the single pen that I keep chasing around the house and a wrinkled scrap of paper because my real notebook is lost, it's been so long since I opened it. I want to say something about a moment from yesterday before the days dilute it and its spreads out all over my memory, blended into one million other moments that look exactly the same.
I pause because I don't know how to start. It's so ordinary. How can I paint a picture that shivers with beauty the way it does behind my eyes? It was an unremarkable day, a deep breath after the crescendo of busy-ness that was last week. The two middle girls wanted to swing so that's what we did. They laughed big crazy belly laughs and the baby watched the back and forth with wide eyes. Wise eyes. She knew what was going on. The air was just the right temperature and the breeze moved only slightly and not a single bug landed on my skin. My hands pressed into the littler one's back and she moved away and back, away and back and I was part of that pendulum rhythm without even thinking about it. The older one said the swing was her broomstick and hers could fly higher. Her sister echoed her laughter, flying high too but not understanding that -er as a suffix meant she was being out done.
One hundred years from now, none of this will matter. This is a truth I've been telling myself in moments of crisis or chaos or frustration or fatigue and it helps. But this sentence in my hands right now cuts my skin and I bleed. I'm the only witness to this moment that matters only to me and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will bury it completely and I won't even remember the gold around its edges.
This makes my throat ache so that I think I might cry or scream or throw up and the only thing I can do is open my mouth wide and shove all of it down down down and try to remember the taste as it passes over my tongue. Maybe later I can dangle some fishing line past my teeth and hook some beautiful words like dappled and ephemeral and they will drip with holy water when I dangle them in front of my eyes. They'll reflect the light as if from within and line up in a perfect frame around something profound.
Maybe.
***
She takes off ahead of me, school bag bouncing against her back, bare legs flying. She always gets the mail after school. I think she likes that moment of anticipation when her fingers just touch the handle and the door still hides the contents and there might be something inside with her name on it. I am dear friends what that kind of hope.
The huge pine in our yard points like a finger at the heavens and drapes a skirt of shade across the grass. But I walk through a pleat of sun half a street behind. I balance the baby against my chest and she blinks and squints at the world over my shoulder -- eyes in the back of my head. A cloud of gnats hover in a strange, concentrated column just next to the road and the sun glints off their individual bodies -- internally illuminated points of light traveling in crazy, unchartable orbits, tethered by force or choice to an unseen center.
I see her drop half the mail so I hurry to help pick it up. It's all catalogs and advertisements. Junk. I toss it in the recycle bin as we walk inside and for a single second I wonder where it will be born again.
***
I've been reading this book about writing, and it's making me almost as happy as actually writing something myself. Almost. The author's best advice is to just write because you might pour out six pages of crap before you find that one, glinting gem of a sentence that was the whole point of the thing and never would have bubbled to the surface if you didn't decant all that froth from the top first. So I woke up early this morning and felt awake and alive for once so I'm sitting here with my cup of coffee and the single pen that I keep chasing around the house and a wrinkled scrap of paper because my real notebook is lost, it's been so long since I opened it. I want to say something about a moment from yesterday before the days dilute it and its spreads out all over my memory, blended into one million other moments that look exactly the same.
I pause because I don't know how to start. It's so ordinary. How can I paint a picture that shivers with beauty the way it does behind my eyes? It was an unremarkable day, a deep breath after the crescendo of busy-ness that was last week. The two middle girls wanted to swing so that's what we did. They laughed big crazy belly laughs and the baby watched the back and forth with wide eyes. Wise eyes. She knew what was going on. The air was just the right temperature and the breeze moved only slightly and not a single bug landed on my skin. My hands pressed into the littler one's back and she moved away and back, away and back and I was part of that pendulum rhythm without even thinking about it. The older one said the swing was her broomstick and hers could fly higher. Her sister echoed her laughter, flying high too but not understanding that -er as a suffix meant she was being out done.
One hundred years from now, none of this will matter. This is a truth I've been telling myself in moments of crisis or chaos or frustration or fatigue and it helps. But this sentence in my hands right now cuts my skin and I bleed. I'm the only witness to this moment that matters only to me and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will bury it completely and I won't even remember the gold around its edges.
This makes my throat ache so that I think I might cry or scream or throw up and the only thing I can do is open my mouth wide and shove all of it down down down and try to remember the taste as it passes over my tongue. Maybe later I can dangle some fishing line past my teeth and hook some beautiful words like dappled and ephemeral and they will drip with holy water when I dangle them in front of my eyes. They'll reflect the light as if from within and line up in a perfect frame around something profound.
Maybe.
***
She takes off ahead of me, school bag bouncing against her back, bare legs flying. She always gets the mail after school. I think she likes that moment of anticipation when her fingers just touch the handle and the door still hides the contents and there might be something inside with her name on it. I am dear friends what that kind of hope.
The huge pine in our yard points like a finger at the heavens and drapes a skirt of shade across the grass. But I walk through a pleat of sun half a street behind. I balance the baby against my chest and she blinks and squints at the world over my shoulder -- eyes in the back of my head. A cloud of gnats hover in a strange, concentrated column just next to the road and the sun glints off their individual bodies -- internally illuminated points of light traveling in crazy, unchartable orbits, tethered by force or choice to an unseen center.
I see her drop half the mail so I hurry to help pick it up. It's all catalogs and advertisements. Junk. I toss it in the recycle bin as we walk inside and for a single second I wonder where it will be born again.
Friday, May 11, 2012
wishes
I have one foot outside. My hip holds the door open and I stoop to clip the dog's harness to her chain. My eyes follow her out the door, an arc of movement. Something in the cuff of my jeans catches my attention. I don't stand up.
The dark material is coarse under my fingertips. I unfold it. Dandelion seeds cling to me.
I brush them off in a single exhale and they latch onto an unseen breeze, skirting across the concrete step and away from me, born into the air on a whispered wish. They blend into the air. Gone.
Someone says my name. Mama?
I straighten and step back into the house. Back to making dinner. Back to them. Back to sewing another patch into the parachutes on their backs.
The dark material is coarse under my fingertips. I unfold it. Dandelion seeds cling to me.
I brush them off in a single exhale and they latch onto an unseen breeze, skirting across the concrete step and away from me, born into the air on a whispered wish. They blend into the air. Gone.
Someone says my name. Mama?
I straighten and step back into the house. Back to making dinner. Back to them. Back to sewing another patch into the parachutes on their backs.
Monday, May 7, 2012
footprints in the sand
I was eighteen when I got the tattoo. It was a premeditated whim but not entirely out of character. I've always liked the idea of
something under the surface, hidden from view, with roots even deeper
than a layer of skin. Something that won't rub off.
It was a mark with a vaguely defined meaning. Something about walking with someone you love? Or maybe about running really, really fast? Open for interpretation. That the years might alter it -- might pull on it, might stretch it further -- never crossed my mind.
Today, it means this:
Their voices bubble up from the basement. Their bodies burst into the living room. I watch from the sidelines.
They ricochet down the hallway in high heels, in slippers, in slapping bare feet. I'm wearing my bathrobe.
Their bedroom door slams. The walls muffle their noise. I press my coffee cup to my forehead, to the grooves that are growing there between my brows. I close my eyes.
I imagine the hallway lined with sand. I see their footprints, divots one on top of the other, impossible to follow. Volatile in the wind. Nothing in the rain.
I get down on my knees and cup my hands around the places they've been.
It was a mark with a vaguely defined meaning. Something about walking with someone you love? Or maybe about running really, really fast? Open for interpretation. That the years might alter it -- might pull on it, might stretch it further -- never crossed my mind.
Today, it means this:
Their voices bubble up from the basement. Their bodies burst into the living room. I watch from the sidelines.
They ricochet down the hallway in high heels, in slippers, in slapping bare feet. I'm wearing my bathrobe.
Their bedroom door slams. The walls muffle their noise. I press my coffee cup to my forehead, to the grooves that are growing there between my brows. I close my eyes.
I imagine the hallway lined with sand. I see their footprints, divots one on top of the other, impossible to follow. Volatile in the wind. Nothing in the rain.
I get down on my knees and cup my hands around the places they've been.
Friday, April 27, 2012
balance
I wake with an ache threaded through my jaw on one side. Its tight and hard to move. My mouth must have been hanging open, slack and slanted sideways under sleep that dragged me down too deep and pulled me to the surface too fast. That's the most dangerous way to dive.
I sit up and pull on my socks, first one and then the other. I open and close my mouth until the two sides even out and by the time I make it to the kitchen, my jaw is loose enough to let my lips form the shape of good morning. My voice catches, dry and unused and unfamiliar in my ears.
***
I am asymmetrical. There's no way to fold me so my edges line up.
Just look. My right eye is smaller than the left. I'm missing a rib on one side. One breast feeds my baby better than the other and when I sweat I swear my right armpit smells stronger. My waistline feels thicker on the right when I'm sitting and one foot is bigger than the other.
These imbalances are branded into my blueprint. But they don't bother me. I can still stand up straight.
***
With a handful of birdseed, we call the chickens back to their coop. She laughs as they run toward us, moving fast and low and ridiculous.
They look so funny, like they could just fall right over.
I agree. There's something about two legs and no arms and wings folded back that looks unbalanced. But their anatomy doesn't fail them and they can't hear us laugh.
***
I'm out for a walk -- baby in the sling, dog on the leash, everyone else at home. Silence moves through the trees and cools my cheeks. The spring air is damp in my lungs.
I pass a woman walking the other way and we exchange the usual smile and hello.
You have your hands full! she adds.
She has no idea. My arms and chest and head are so loaded with blessings that my spine bends under it all. I'm surprised she can't see that.
Or maybe that's what she meant.
***
The night she came is wrapped tightly in webs of memory. Some details melt together but other moments stand still, framed and flash frozen in my mind.
Like this:
I walk through the door, my vision tunneled. I stop. I see only him.
She's sweeping my legs out from under me and I wrap my arms around his shoulders. I know I'm probably pressing against him too hard but he doesn't flinch. My forehead touches his shirt.
I breathe him in and he balances me.
***
Now his hand on my shoulder surprises me. That's where her head usually rests.
More than two voices aimed at me can shoot me down.
Milk on the floor brings me to my knees.
Making dinner is a mountain.
He tells me I should go to yoga class but I don't feel like it. A movie is too long and words on a page swim and blur before I can finish a chapter. This is the only thing I can write about. It's not time away that I need.
***
Their game is somewhat quiet. The baby is happy in her bouncy chair. I sit on the floor in the living room surrounded by them. The evening light dims.
He stands in the kitchen and the light above the sink holds him in a soft spotlight. His back is to me as he does the dishes. He talks.
What he says is ordinary. Everyday. But his voice walks across the room, threading together in strands that become solid, a ballet bar above my head. I reach up and find it, memorizing its position so I can find it tomorrow when all the lights are on and I'm trying to stand one foot, practicing balance.
I sit up and pull on my socks, first one and then the other. I open and close my mouth until the two sides even out and by the time I make it to the kitchen, my jaw is loose enough to let my lips form the shape of good morning. My voice catches, dry and unused and unfamiliar in my ears.
***
I am asymmetrical. There's no way to fold me so my edges line up.
Just look. My right eye is smaller than the left. I'm missing a rib on one side. One breast feeds my baby better than the other and when I sweat I swear my right armpit smells stronger. My waistline feels thicker on the right when I'm sitting and one foot is bigger than the other.
These imbalances are branded into my blueprint. But they don't bother me. I can still stand up straight.
***
With a handful of birdseed, we call the chickens back to their coop. She laughs as they run toward us, moving fast and low and ridiculous.
They look so funny, like they could just fall right over.
I agree. There's something about two legs and no arms and wings folded back that looks unbalanced. But their anatomy doesn't fail them and they can't hear us laugh.
***
I'm out for a walk -- baby in the sling, dog on the leash, everyone else at home. Silence moves through the trees and cools my cheeks. The spring air is damp in my lungs.
I pass a woman walking the other way and we exchange the usual smile and hello.
You have your hands full! she adds.
She has no idea. My arms and chest and head are so loaded with blessings that my spine bends under it all. I'm surprised she can't see that.
Or maybe that's what she meant.
***
The night she came is wrapped tightly in webs of memory. Some details melt together but other moments stand still, framed and flash frozen in my mind.
Like this:
I walk through the door, my vision tunneled. I stop. I see only him.
She's sweeping my legs out from under me and I wrap my arms around his shoulders. I know I'm probably pressing against him too hard but he doesn't flinch. My forehead touches his shirt.
I breathe him in and he balances me.
***
Now his hand on my shoulder surprises me. That's where her head usually rests.
More than two voices aimed at me can shoot me down.
Milk on the floor brings me to my knees.
Making dinner is a mountain.
He tells me I should go to yoga class but I don't feel like it. A movie is too long and words on a page swim and blur before I can finish a chapter. This is the only thing I can write about. It's not time away that I need.
***
Their game is somewhat quiet. The baby is happy in her bouncy chair. I sit on the floor in the living room surrounded by them. The evening light dims.
He stands in the kitchen and the light above the sink holds him in a soft spotlight. His back is to me as he does the dishes. He talks.
What he says is ordinary. Everyday. But his voice walks across the room, threading together in strands that become solid, a ballet bar above my head. I reach up and find it, memorizing its position so I can find it tomorrow when all the lights are on and I'm trying to stand one foot, practicing balance.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
separate
5.
Mama, can you iron this?
I'm busy right now but she lives in this moment. Only this one. And she wants to hold it in her hands. That's something I can understand.
I turn on the iron and wait for it to warm. Too much heat and I'll ruin what she made. Not enough and the pieces will separate. The ready light turns green. I slide the iron across the beads. They melt just enough.
It turns out.
***
0.
I press my cheek against the top of her head. She warms my skin. She doesn't know it yet, but a fire burns within her.
I only have to angle my neck slightly to tuck her entire skull under my chin. Her bones are solid, shielding from the world the map to who she'll become. But they're also so fragile: still soft, still separated. For now, she is incomplete without me.
I cup my hands around her flame, wings against the world.
***
2.
She was the littlest. I carried her a lot. She sat on my lap. I stroked the soft skin on the backs of her hands. I breathed deeply into her hair.
Overnight everything changed.
Now she holds my hand. Sits next to me. Close but separate.
She smiles a lot but she also pushes hard. She's looking for her place. And there's something within me that pushes back. I feel singed and raw. She is fire when I'm craving snow.
But tomorrow it's supposed to rain.
***
7.
I'm so mad at you. I'm never talking to you again for the rest of my life. Her tone is serious. Cutting.
I raise my eyebrows and pause to swallow. Once. Twice. Both sad and snarky boil in the back of my throat and it takes me a second to separate logic from emotion. I have to pry it loose, strand by strand.
I'm sorry to hear that. I have to say something or she tells me you don't even care. I'm feeling my way through the dark.
By the time she's a teenager, maybe I'll be able to see shadows -- the outlines of shapes, of roots exposed -- before I catch my toe on a corner and fall flat on my face.
***
Are those your regular jeans?
Yep.
Wow. You look great! You're lucky.
Lucky or not, this is just how it is for me. My pregnant form fades easily. My body is elastic.
Except it's not.
I'm in the dark, in bed, lying on my back. I press my fingers into my abdomen and feel how the muscles are separate, a valley that starts and my navel and runs up to my diaphragm. I know I've come undone in ways that cannot be stitched up.
But there's something behind my naval, too. A fire deep inside my belly. It might be flickering right now but it hasn't gone out. And it can be stoked. It can always be stoked.
I know how.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
where I get random
Sarah, who writes at the blog This Heavenly Life tagged me in a meme last week. The object of this little game is to post 11 random things about yourself, answer the 11 questions posed by the tagger, create 11 new questions, and tag other bloggers. I've been thinking about it ever since. While I loved reading Sarah's post and finding out more about her, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to come up with a response clever enough to be worth posting.
But I wanted to write something. So I decided the only place to start is where I'm at.
1. It's dusk. Dinner is done and I took on dish-duty, specifically for the chance to stand up straight. I've been holding the baby all day. She weighs down on me. But I step outside to bring in the laundry first. The light is fading and I have two arms free.
It's mostly his clothing in this load. I unpin a blue shirt. I'll need to iron this one. I fold it in half but hold it up to my face before putting it in the basket. It smells like the breeze that's been blowing all day, spring marinated into the fibers, but it still smells like him. This is why I don't use scented laundry detergent.
The air smells significant, too. Smokey, but not the wood stove smoke of the cold weather months. This is the campfire scent of summer, speaking of humid evenings, of roasted marshmallows, of ash soaring high above the flames. A neighbor must be burning a bonfire.
2. It reminds me of another time and place of a similar smell, bonfires all around. It was a Civil War reenactment. I was part of a "crowd control" crew, walking around the grounds with my Americorps NCCC team members, mostly just picking up cigarette butts and trying to look busy while taking in the sights and sounds and smells of a different time period brought to life. There were costumes and tents and weapons, food and animals and bonfires. I can't remember exactly where we were -- 11 years have elapsed since then and we saw so many places during our 10 months of service, traveling here and there in the southeast -- but this moment, taking laundry from the line, smelling the bonfire, reminds me that:
3. That year in NCCC was probably one of the hardest of my life. I was away from home, away from everything familiar, in a way that I hadn't experienced yet, even during my first couple years in college. I already knew I was an introvert, safe only in small circles (I had only attended one college party -- I walked in, looked at the crowd, and walked back out. It was coffee shops and libraries for me), but working and living so closely with a whole new group of people was something far, far out of my comfort zone. I had to work hard to hold myself together.
4. But it was also one of the most important years of my life, too. I learned so much. About myself. About the people and ideas outside my little world. But more than that, it pointed me home. Back to the Midwest, to my roots, to my family. But also to him. He would always be my front door.
5. He asked me to marry him during that year, when I was home for a weekend break. It was a bike ride in our home town, a stop by a river, him down on one knee, the ring. My mouth hanging open. Yes. And before we rode home -- on our bikes, on our joy and hopes and dreams -- I stopped to pick up a stone. It sits in my jewelery box, more valuable than any gem. Maybe someday it will be the first bit of earth I'm buried under.
6. When I was a kid, I buried a time capsule in my yard with a friend (how old were we, Anna?). I remember writing down various facts about ourselves, such as what we were wearing that day. It was my idea for each of us to also disclose one "secret" into the capsule. We intended to leave the jar underground for years, but it lasted a few months at best. When we unearthed it, my "secret" was this: I'm wearing a bra! I certainly did not need one.
7. I did not need one after my last kid weaned, either. This is not something that has ever bothered me.
8. Speaking of kids, you know how I have four? In many cases, mothering that many would mean that in general, I'm good with them. That I like them. Actually -- um -- not so much. I'm somewhat afraid of them. The idea of chaperoning school trips or volunteering in the classroom sends me into small fits of anxiety. This is true. And likely largely due to the fact that:
9. People in general scare me. In most cases, unless I know everyone going, I'd rather stay home. Nowadays, I have many excuses to stay home. But that was not always so. (See #3). And I have a hunch that as my girls get older, I'll have to come out of my shell to allow them to come out of theirs. I try not to think about that.
10. I don't think of myself as a good conversationalist. I'm not entertaining or animated. I'm better one-on-one than in a group, and I express myself better through writing than speaking. But I'd never call myself witty or funny. And you'll always win a debate against me. I'll only tell you about my religious views if I don't feel like you're trying to sell me yours, and I'd rather fold laundry than discuss politics.
11. Actually, there are a lot of things about laundry that I like. And I'd probably stay out here longer, taking these things down slowly, if the bugs weren't biting me...
And now, to answer Sarah's questions...
1. Do you always read the entire book once you get started, or have you ever stopped halfway through a book? If so, what was it, and why?
I usually finish. But I quit Lord of the Rings before I got past the first hundred pages. There was too much description and I had laundry to fold...
2. Which would you prefer to spend an afternoon doing: painting with a room full of preschoolers or painting with a group of adults?
Isn't is obvious? Neither. I'd rather if the room was empty.
3. Is there a television show on right now that you try to never miss? What is it?
Nope. I rarely choose to watch TV. I'd rather read. Or write. Or do yoga. Or stare out the window....
4. What is the most adventurous food item you've ever tried?
I will try anything. Unless it spent any part of its life underwater.
5. If you could have as many children as you wanted without fear of discomfort (either physical or financial) or social judgement, how many do you think you'd have?
I think I'm at my limit right now...
6. What foreign culture fascinates you the most?
I will read any book about any group of people and find it interesting. I don't have an itch to travel, though. At least not right now.
7. When you're grocery shopping, what snack item has the greatest ability to tempt you into an unnecessary purchase?
Chocolate. Enough said.
8. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you succeed?
An author. I'm working on it.
9. If you could go back to school and get any degree, would you choose differently than you did the first time?
I started in engineering and switched to English after two years. So yes -- I would have started in English so that I could have taken more classes in my major. I would have taken more creative writing classes as well.
10. You have a $500 gift card to the closest mall: what will you spend it on?
Clothing, please. But can I shop online?
11. You are headed into a party full of people you've never met before and where mingling is expected. What one word describes your mindset as you open the door?
I think, by now, you must know my answer. GETMEOUTOFHERE. Can that count as one word?
***
Next, I'm supposed to come up with 11 new questions and tag other bloggers. But I'm tired. So this is as far as I go. But if you want to leave me a comment with some random facts about yourself, the floor is yours.
But I wanted to write something. So I decided the only place to start is where I'm at.
1. It's dusk. Dinner is done and I took on dish-duty, specifically for the chance to stand up straight. I've been holding the baby all day. She weighs down on me. But I step outside to bring in the laundry first. The light is fading and I have two arms free.
It's mostly his clothing in this load. I unpin a blue shirt. I'll need to iron this one. I fold it in half but hold it up to my face before putting it in the basket. It smells like the breeze that's been blowing all day, spring marinated into the fibers, but it still smells like him. This is why I don't use scented laundry detergent.
The air smells significant, too. Smokey, but not the wood stove smoke of the cold weather months. This is the campfire scent of summer, speaking of humid evenings, of roasted marshmallows, of ash soaring high above the flames. A neighbor must be burning a bonfire.
2. It reminds me of another time and place of a similar smell, bonfires all around. It was a Civil War reenactment. I was part of a "crowd control" crew, walking around the grounds with my Americorps NCCC team members, mostly just picking up cigarette butts and trying to look busy while taking in the sights and sounds and smells of a different time period brought to life. There were costumes and tents and weapons, food and animals and bonfires. I can't remember exactly where we were -- 11 years have elapsed since then and we saw so many places during our 10 months of service, traveling here and there in the southeast -- but this moment, taking laundry from the line, smelling the bonfire, reminds me that:
3. That year in NCCC was probably one of the hardest of my life. I was away from home, away from everything familiar, in a way that I hadn't experienced yet, even during my first couple years in college. I already knew I was an introvert, safe only in small circles (I had only attended one college party -- I walked in, looked at the crowd, and walked back out. It was coffee shops and libraries for me), but working and living so closely with a whole new group of people was something far, far out of my comfort zone. I had to work hard to hold myself together.
4. But it was also one of the most important years of my life, too. I learned so much. About myself. About the people and ideas outside my little world. But more than that, it pointed me home. Back to the Midwest, to my roots, to my family. But also to him. He would always be my front door.
5. He asked me to marry him during that year, when I was home for a weekend break. It was a bike ride in our home town, a stop by a river, him down on one knee, the ring. My mouth hanging open. Yes. And before we rode home -- on our bikes, on our joy and hopes and dreams -- I stopped to pick up a stone. It sits in my jewelery box, more valuable than any gem. Maybe someday it will be the first bit of earth I'm buried under.
6. When I was a kid, I buried a time capsule in my yard with a friend (how old were we, Anna?). I remember writing down various facts about ourselves, such as what we were wearing that day. It was my idea for each of us to also disclose one "secret" into the capsule. We intended to leave the jar underground for years, but it lasted a few months at best. When we unearthed it, my "secret" was this: I'm wearing a bra! I certainly did not need one.
7. I did not need one after my last kid weaned, either. This is not something that has ever bothered me.
8. Speaking of kids, you know how I have four? In many cases, mothering that many would mean that in general, I'm good with them. That I like them. Actually -- um -- not so much. I'm somewhat afraid of them. The idea of chaperoning school trips or volunteering in the classroom sends me into small fits of anxiety. This is true. And likely largely due to the fact that:
9. People in general scare me. In most cases, unless I know everyone going, I'd rather stay home. Nowadays, I have many excuses to stay home. But that was not always so. (See #3). And I have a hunch that as my girls get older, I'll have to come out of my shell to allow them to come out of theirs. I try not to think about that.
10. I don't think of myself as a good conversationalist. I'm not entertaining or animated. I'm better one-on-one than in a group, and I express myself better through writing than speaking. But I'd never call myself witty or funny. And you'll always win a debate against me. I'll only tell you about my religious views if I don't feel like you're trying to sell me yours, and I'd rather fold laundry than discuss politics.
11. Actually, there are a lot of things about laundry that I like. And I'd probably stay out here longer, taking these things down slowly, if the bugs weren't biting me...
And now, to answer Sarah's questions...
1. Do you always read the entire book once you get started, or have you ever stopped halfway through a book? If so, what was it, and why?
I usually finish. But I quit Lord of the Rings before I got past the first hundred pages. There was too much description and I had laundry to fold...
2. Which would you prefer to spend an afternoon doing: painting with a room full of preschoolers or painting with a group of adults?
Isn't is obvious? Neither. I'd rather if the room was empty.
3. Is there a television show on right now that you try to never miss? What is it?
Nope. I rarely choose to watch TV. I'd rather read. Or write. Or do yoga. Or stare out the window....
4. What is the most adventurous food item you've ever tried?
I will try anything. Unless it spent any part of its life underwater.
5. If you could have as many children as you wanted without fear of discomfort (either physical or financial) or social judgement, how many do you think you'd have?
I think I'm at my limit right now...
6. What foreign culture fascinates you the most?
I will read any book about any group of people and find it interesting. I don't have an itch to travel, though. At least not right now.
7. When you're grocery shopping, what snack item has the greatest ability to tempt you into an unnecessary purchase?
Chocolate. Enough said.
8. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you succeed?
An author. I'm working on it.
9. If you could go back to school and get any degree, would you choose differently than you did the first time?
I started in engineering and switched to English after two years. So yes -- I would have started in English so that I could have taken more classes in my major. I would have taken more creative writing classes as well.
10. You have a $500 gift card to the closest mall: what will you spend it on?
Clothing, please. But can I shop online?
11. You are headed into a party full of people you've never met before and where mingling is expected. What one word describes your mindset as you open the door?
I think, by now, you must know my answer. GETMEOUTOFHERE. Can that count as one word?
***
Next, I'm supposed to come up with 11 new questions and tag other bloggers. But I'm tired. So this is as far as I go. But if you want to leave me a comment with some random facts about yourself, the floor is yours.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
the point
Mommy, they won't let me play.
She turns her whole body toward him, her shoulders square with his.
Hm, well what did they say?
They just say 'no' whenever I ask. She hears what he says but knows what's under the surface, too.
That must have made you feel really sad. She holds her hand out to him. I'll go back with you and see if we can figure something out.
Our conversation evaporates into wispy clouds that dissipate when she walks through them on her way out of the room. But I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about her tone and her choice of words and her patience and her empathy and I'm opening my mouth to catch all those cool flakes on my tongue so I can cough them up at the right moments. But they melt on contact. I don't even get to swallow.
I've been running too hot lately and I know it. I feel it in my mouth.
***
The mirror is full length. I am in my underwear.
I'm about to take the dress from its hanger (ignoring the price tag for now) but I stop. I let my arms hang at my sides.
I see angles and edges because that's what I am. What I always have been. But there's also a softness to my belly, new but not really. I don't wrinkle my nose or wish it away. It's gentleness, underneath everything, when I don't feel gentle at all.
I wiggle into the dress. It's tight and stripey and somehow highlights both the sharp and the soft and I look wrong all over. Unbalanced.
I buy a hoodie instead. It's red-orange like the sun when it's going down, with thumb-holes so I can slouch the sleeves over my wrists and hide halfway down my palms. I get cold in the summer sometimes, too.
***
What do you think is the point of life?
Its an abrupt shift in conversation but it doesn't surprise me. This is how we've always talked.
My instant answer is this: survival.
But its more than that. Or I wouldn't.
I gesture to my baby in her arms. My second answer: procreation, of course.
But animals do that, too. That's not enough.
Could it be this? Finding beauty in everything. In the good stuff. And in the rock hard places, too.
***
I'm driving home. I was out. Alone.
I sit crookedly in the driver's seat, leaning to the right under the weight of a baby not on my shoulder. Hunched forward over a full belly now deflated.
The radio fills the silence and my empty head. But I turn it off the second I see the moon. It hovers low and luminary, humongous and completely impossible. The air feels charged and sacred. It can only hold silence.
When I pull into the driveway, the moon disappears behind the too-big houses down the street. I go inside. It's getting late -- at least for me. Sleep pulls at the corners of my eyes and accelerates the rust grinding deep within my joints.
The night grows longer.
The baby won't settle.
Liquid frustration fills my brain and swims into my eyes. I sit in the rocking chair by the front window. I blink. The moon is higher. Smaller. Somehow even brighter. But tucked behind the half-full branches.
I lean my head back and close my eyes against the darkness of the room and her open eyes. When I open them again the moon is above the trees and I can see its face completely.
It is full.
So am I.
She turns her whole body toward him, her shoulders square with his.
Hm, well what did they say?
They just say 'no' whenever I ask. She hears what he says but knows what's under the surface, too.
That must have made you feel really sad. She holds her hand out to him. I'll go back with you and see if we can figure something out.
Our conversation evaporates into wispy clouds that dissipate when she walks through them on her way out of the room. But I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about her tone and her choice of words and her patience and her empathy and I'm opening my mouth to catch all those cool flakes on my tongue so I can cough them up at the right moments. But they melt on contact. I don't even get to swallow.
I've been running too hot lately and I know it. I feel it in my mouth.
***
The mirror is full length. I am in my underwear.
I'm about to take the dress from its hanger (ignoring the price tag for now) but I stop. I let my arms hang at my sides.
I see angles and edges because that's what I am. What I always have been. But there's also a softness to my belly, new but not really. I don't wrinkle my nose or wish it away. It's gentleness, underneath everything, when I don't feel gentle at all.
I wiggle into the dress. It's tight and stripey and somehow highlights both the sharp and the soft and I look wrong all over. Unbalanced.
I buy a hoodie instead. It's red-orange like the sun when it's going down, with thumb-holes so I can slouch the sleeves over my wrists and hide halfway down my palms. I get cold in the summer sometimes, too.
***
What do you think is the point of life?
Its an abrupt shift in conversation but it doesn't surprise me. This is how we've always talked.
My instant answer is this: survival.
But its more than that. Or I wouldn't.
I gesture to my baby in her arms. My second answer: procreation, of course.
But animals do that, too. That's not enough.
Could it be this? Finding beauty in everything. In the good stuff. And in the rock hard places, too.
***
I'm driving home. I was out. Alone.
I sit crookedly in the driver's seat, leaning to the right under the weight of a baby not on my shoulder. Hunched forward over a full belly now deflated.
The radio fills the silence and my empty head. But I turn it off the second I see the moon. It hovers low and luminary, humongous and completely impossible. The air feels charged and sacred. It can only hold silence.
When I pull into the driveway, the moon disappears behind the too-big houses down the street. I go inside. It's getting late -- at least for me. Sleep pulls at the corners of my eyes and accelerates the rust grinding deep within my joints.
The night grows longer.
The baby won't settle.
Liquid frustration fills my brain and swims into my eyes. I sit in the rocking chair by the front window. I blink. The moon is higher. Smaller. Somehow even brighter. But tucked behind the half-full branches.
I lean my head back and close my eyes against the darkness of the room and her open eyes. When I open them again the moon is above the trees and I can see its face completely.
It is full.
So am I.
Friday, March 30, 2012
nests
Lately I have been sleeping on my stomach, one arm tucked under my
chest, the other nested against my naval. My belly feels foreign and
flat yet soft. It still remembers the shape it held just a few short
weeks ago. My dreams are empty and interrupted. When I wake, my arms are
fast asleep.
***
It's dusk. The sky shades into a color that's not quite night and the trees look black against it. Buds and baby leaves can't fill in a canopy yet, so each branch points like a crooked finger at the moon and pierces holes in the heavens for the first stars to shine through.
Squirrel nests hang ragged and exposed high above my head. Blood clots in the branches, too large to slip like sand through outstretched fingers. Once he told me that these are temporary shelters and hiding places -- not nests to raise young. I wonder where they birth their babies, then, and how long it takes the wind to loosen each leaf and finally blow these not-nests apart.
***
The tree outside our front window leafs out before all the others and turns golden when it's nowhere near autumn. He thinks it might be dying. I'm not sure.
Last summer, I watched little, dark-capped birds tunnel into the trunk. I'd never witnessed this kind of nest building before and it held my attention. On the way to the mailbox one day I stopped and peered inside. Two glittering eyes looked back at me. She must have been guarding something precious or surely my bold approach would have sent her into flight.
All the seasons of a single year have passed and they're back this spring. I'm not sure if it's the same pair or two different birds, but I see them dart in and out, busy with instinct-driven preparations. I watch one fly away, its trajectory level with my line of sight. Even though it flies from this tree to the next without deviating left or right, its path is not straight. It undulates up and down gently, wings catching on a breeze I can't feel.
Though this tree's sap might be flowing more slowly this year, it plays host to new life anyway. I think about going out there with a flashlight so I can see the eggs or even just the bits of straw they're weaving into a nest. But I don't. Maybe miracles need some mystery.
***
I hold the baby up on my shoulder, her warm, downy head whispering against my cheek. Even from my peripheral view, she looks like a picture: full and drowsy, hands folded under her chin, lips pursed, cheeks drooping down. The house is quiet. He took the other three and their chaos out to do some shopping.
I sit. I rock. I breathe.
I don't think about how loud it will be when they get back or what we'll have for dinner or the mess in the living room or the circle of my arms that used to be home but now feels fractured under this new weight. I don't think about him going back to work or me driving to preschool or how rude this one sometimes acts or the fits that one throws or that she's too heavy for me to carry anymore and my arms are too full to tread in such thick water.
I don't.
Instead I just watch the sun stream through the windows and ingest the scent of her new skin and sit and sit and sit and let that fill me all the way up as she turns her head in her sleep and nests deeper into my neck.
***
It's dusk. The sky shades into a color that's not quite night and the trees look black against it. Buds and baby leaves can't fill in a canopy yet, so each branch points like a crooked finger at the moon and pierces holes in the heavens for the first stars to shine through.
Squirrel nests hang ragged and exposed high above my head. Blood clots in the branches, too large to slip like sand through outstretched fingers. Once he told me that these are temporary shelters and hiding places -- not nests to raise young. I wonder where they birth their babies, then, and how long it takes the wind to loosen each leaf and finally blow these not-nests apart.
***
The tree outside our front window leafs out before all the others and turns golden when it's nowhere near autumn. He thinks it might be dying. I'm not sure.
Last summer, I watched little, dark-capped birds tunnel into the trunk. I'd never witnessed this kind of nest building before and it held my attention. On the way to the mailbox one day I stopped and peered inside. Two glittering eyes looked back at me. She must have been guarding something precious or surely my bold approach would have sent her into flight.
All the seasons of a single year have passed and they're back this spring. I'm not sure if it's the same pair or two different birds, but I see them dart in and out, busy with instinct-driven preparations. I watch one fly away, its trajectory level with my line of sight. Even though it flies from this tree to the next without deviating left or right, its path is not straight. It undulates up and down gently, wings catching on a breeze I can't feel.
Though this tree's sap might be flowing more slowly this year, it plays host to new life anyway. I think about going out there with a flashlight so I can see the eggs or even just the bits of straw they're weaving into a nest. But I don't. Maybe miracles need some mystery.
***
I hold the baby up on my shoulder, her warm, downy head whispering against my cheek. Even from my peripheral view, she looks like a picture: full and drowsy, hands folded under her chin, lips pursed, cheeks drooping down. The house is quiet. He took the other three and their chaos out to do some shopping.
I sit. I rock. I breathe.
I don't think about how loud it will be when they get back or what we'll have for dinner or the mess in the living room or the circle of my arms that used to be home but now feels fractured under this new weight. I don't think about him going back to work or me driving to preschool or how rude this one sometimes acts or the fits that one throws or that she's too heavy for me to carry anymore and my arms are too full to tread in such thick water.
I don't.
Instead I just watch the sun stream through the windows and ingest the scent of her new skin and sit and sit and sit and let that fill me all the way up as she turns her head in her sleep and nests deeper into my neck.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
overnight
It happens overnight.
The grass wakes up and one thousand tiny leaves are all born at once, dusting the landscape with a nascent green. Mother Earth groans through every crack in the soil as tiny shoots press out of the darkness and into the light. The air is damp and the dew that settles by morning blesses every single surface with drops of water made holy by the creeping rays of dawn.
An owl asks the moon to stay. It won't.
***
It happens overnight.
I convince myself that if I lie perfectly still, it will go away. This is not how I hoped it would happen.
I get up, walk around, sit down, lie back in bed. I can't will this away. It moves toward me like the change of seasons -- not a date marked on the calendar but as an unknowable, untimable transition set in motion by something secret -- the sap flowing under the bark.
I tap his shoulder. Once. He doesn't respond. I don't really want him to. But I wait a moment and tap again. He rolls toward me.
"So," I say.
I pause. The silence is the full moon -- round and complete with two eyes watching from above our heads.
It takes him a few minutes to convince me out of bed again. I know I'm surrendering to gravity once my feet hit the floor. This is a hill I have to roll down.
There's the bustle and the hurry, the phone calls and the neighbor arriving. The night air rushes through the door behind her, circling around my ankles and tugging on me like the tide until I'm outside. In the car.
What was just mild tightens a few notches and I sigh after it loosens again.
"Goodness, it's nice to not have a contraction," I say. We're halfway there.
The next pain holds my head under the water and I gasp for air. He notices the change. I hear him call the hospital and ask that the midwife meet us in the ER. I'm someplace else already. I don't feel the speed he's driving.
We get there. I sense that the lights are too bright and there are more people around me than I would care to share this experience with. I hear his voice on my periphery and its almost too far away but it matters more than anything. I don't care where I am anymore just find me a safe nest so that what's going to happen can happen and I can breathe again.
It does. I do.
They place her on my chest.
She's whole.
She's here.
I see her sisters written all over her face. But her own name is etched there, too.
Rose Geraldine.
First to speak for the color of life. Second to root into family and the strength of one great woman and all the great women I've ever known and the sight to find the good in every breathing thing.
When we get home from the hospital I see green outside the front window. Spring came.
It happened overnight.
The grass wakes up and one thousand tiny leaves are all born at once, dusting the landscape with a nascent green. Mother Earth groans through every crack in the soil as tiny shoots press out of the darkness and into the light. The air is damp and the dew that settles by morning blesses every single surface with drops of water made holy by the creeping rays of dawn.
An owl asks the moon to stay. It won't.
***
It happens overnight.
I convince myself that if I lie perfectly still, it will go away. This is not how I hoped it would happen.
I get up, walk around, sit down, lie back in bed. I can't will this away. It moves toward me like the change of seasons -- not a date marked on the calendar but as an unknowable, untimable transition set in motion by something secret -- the sap flowing under the bark.
I tap his shoulder. Once. He doesn't respond. I don't really want him to. But I wait a moment and tap again. He rolls toward me.
"So," I say.
I pause. The silence is the full moon -- round and complete with two eyes watching from above our heads.
It takes him a few minutes to convince me out of bed again. I know I'm surrendering to gravity once my feet hit the floor. This is a hill I have to roll down.
There's the bustle and the hurry, the phone calls and the neighbor arriving. The night air rushes through the door behind her, circling around my ankles and tugging on me like the tide until I'm outside. In the car.
What was just mild tightens a few notches and I sigh after it loosens again.
"Goodness, it's nice to not have a contraction," I say. We're halfway there.
The next pain holds my head under the water and I gasp for air. He notices the change. I hear him call the hospital and ask that the midwife meet us in the ER. I'm someplace else already. I don't feel the speed he's driving.
We get there. I sense that the lights are too bright and there are more people around me than I would care to share this experience with. I hear his voice on my periphery and its almost too far away but it matters more than anything. I don't care where I am anymore just find me a safe nest so that what's going to happen can happen and I can breathe again.
It does. I do.
They place her on my chest.
She's whole.
She's here.
I see her sisters written all over her face. But her own name is etched there, too.
Rose Geraldine.
First to speak for the color of life. Second to root into family and the strength of one great woman and all the great women I've ever known and the sight to find the good in every breathing thing.
When we get home from the hospital I see green outside the front window. Spring came.
It happened overnight.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
filling
Just like any other unborn baby, she takes up all my space. She shoves my innards aside.
Here is my bladder, flat as a pancake. I have to get up every two hours to pee. Here is my stomach, compressed to nothing, yet somehow I have to fill it enough for the both of us. I wonder about the location of my liver and and how it's surviving but it must be there. My intestines, too. I have a lot to digest.
My ribs form an upper limit. A boundary of bone. Yet she reaches up out of my torso, feet stretching, searching. She pedals against my brain, blow after blow, driving the revolutions of a wheel that empties my mind of anything. Everything. But her. And the laundry that must get done before she arrives.
My belly is a balloon that will deflate very soon. My mind will contract with it. I know. I've done this before.
But I trust. trust. trust that mine is a well that keeps on filling. A flood of living water saturates the cracks of a space that seems so full
of everything
of nothing
cold and keeping me alive so when the stars line up and the season changes again, I'll still be able to
See
sharply
enough to call a rose a rose
and find my own face in the mirror.
Here is my bladder, flat as a pancake. I have to get up every two hours to pee. Here is my stomach, compressed to nothing, yet somehow I have to fill it enough for the both of us. I wonder about the location of my liver and and how it's surviving but it must be there. My intestines, too. I have a lot to digest.
My ribs form an upper limit. A boundary of bone. Yet she reaches up out of my torso, feet stretching, searching. She pedals against my brain, blow after blow, driving the revolutions of a wheel that empties my mind of anything. Everything. But her. And the laundry that must get done before she arrives.
My belly is a balloon that will deflate very soon. My mind will contract with it. I know. I've done this before.
But I trust. trust. trust that mine is a well that keeps on filling. A flood of living water saturates the cracks of a space that seems so full
of everything
of nothing
cold and keeping me alive so when the stars line up and the season changes again, I'll still be able to
See
sharply
enough to call a rose a rose
and find my own face in the mirror.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
underneath
The fruit in my hand is ripe. Soft. It's flesh yields under my thumb. I slide the knife as shallow as I can and the peel's surface buckles, tiny ripples rolling across solid skin.
The knife moves easily and the peel falls, ringlets shorn into the sink. Now the fruit is slippery, juicy, naked in my palm. I chunk it into fork-sized pieces and separate them equally into bowls. One slice has a blemish, though -- a bruise. From my thumb? Did I drop it earlier or maybe set it down too hard? Was it packed too tightly, under too much pressure?
I don't know.
But I pop it into my mouth -- none of the kids will eat something that looks even slightly irregular. It tastes sweet, just like I expected.
***
{Youngest.}
I can't settle on a name until I see what she looks like.
He laughs. Just pull out a newborn picture of any of her sisters if you really want to know.
I look down at the skin pulled tight across my belly. Somehow, even this fourth time around, I've escaped stretchmarks. It doesn't seem possible. Perhaps they'll show up yet.
I imagine the girl folded within my womb. She reveals her position easily -- even though I can't see her, she's not hiding at all. Here are her feet, pushing hard just below my ribs, always on the right. Her spine presses against my whole left side and her weight shifts when I roll over in bed. She sinks like a rock and settles into the other soft shore. She expands her chest up and down up and down -- breathing practice. And -- oh -- she turns her head and I wonder how she doesn't burst this bubble.
She feels whole. Bones and skin, face and limbs, and a mind just waiting to open to the world I see, ready to collect on its pages all the beautiful pain and excruciating joy of a life worth living.
But for now she's breathing under water, submerged beneath a skin I can't see through.
I wonder what she looks like.
I wonder what her name will be.
***
{Eldest.}
When she was a newborn, she rarely cried. She stayed awake in the night, though, staring at me with eyes that looked black as midnight and deep as the universe expanding in all directions.
I don't know why I didn't just lay her down and doze off myself -- like I said, she rarely cried. But I couldn't stop holding her. I just kept staring into her eyes and what I saw there was written in another language. But still, I should have taken notes.
The morning light would ignite her eyes blue again, a pale fire draped in front of those windows to the soul that seemed so wide open in the night.
Now she sleeps all night. She doesn't even call for water anymore when she wakes up thirsty at 2 a.m. or request a companion in the dark if she has to go to the bathroom. She just races across the hallway on her own, bare feet pounding ahead of the shadows she sees as tendrils reaching out to snare her.
She's getting so tall.
In the morning, sometimes, her eyes flash with a stubborn fire and with all that smoke I can't see the source of the emotions boiling beneath her surface.
I don't know what to say. It's usually the wrong thing.
She exists outside me completely. I've already counted her fingers and toes -- they've always been all there. I've already plumbed the depths of her eyes and felt the enigma of a soul separate from mine. And her skin is not going to slip off. I wouldn't want it to.
But I know her name. I know what I've given her. What I'm still giving her.
And so I will watch her unfold, doing my best to hold whatever she wants me to.
The knife moves easily and the peel falls, ringlets shorn into the sink. Now the fruit is slippery, juicy, naked in my palm. I chunk it into fork-sized pieces and separate them equally into bowls. One slice has a blemish, though -- a bruise. From my thumb? Did I drop it earlier or maybe set it down too hard? Was it packed too tightly, under too much pressure?
I don't know.
But I pop it into my mouth -- none of the kids will eat something that looks even slightly irregular. It tastes sweet, just like I expected.
***
{Youngest.}
I can't settle on a name until I see what she looks like.
He laughs. Just pull out a newborn picture of any of her sisters if you really want to know.
I look down at the skin pulled tight across my belly. Somehow, even this fourth time around, I've escaped stretchmarks. It doesn't seem possible. Perhaps they'll show up yet.
I imagine the girl folded within my womb. She reveals her position easily -- even though I can't see her, she's not hiding at all. Here are her feet, pushing hard just below my ribs, always on the right. Her spine presses against my whole left side and her weight shifts when I roll over in bed. She sinks like a rock and settles into the other soft shore. She expands her chest up and down up and down -- breathing practice. And -- oh -- she turns her head and I wonder how she doesn't burst this bubble.
She feels whole. Bones and skin, face and limbs, and a mind just waiting to open to the world I see, ready to collect on its pages all the beautiful pain and excruciating joy of a life worth living.
But for now she's breathing under water, submerged beneath a skin I can't see through.
I wonder what she looks like.
I wonder what her name will be.
***
{Eldest.}
When she was a newborn, she rarely cried. She stayed awake in the night, though, staring at me with eyes that looked black as midnight and deep as the universe expanding in all directions.
I don't know why I didn't just lay her down and doze off myself -- like I said, she rarely cried. But I couldn't stop holding her. I just kept staring into her eyes and what I saw there was written in another language. But still, I should have taken notes.
The morning light would ignite her eyes blue again, a pale fire draped in front of those windows to the soul that seemed so wide open in the night.
Now she sleeps all night. She doesn't even call for water anymore when she wakes up thirsty at 2 a.m. or request a companion in the dark if she has to go to the bathroom. She just races across the hallway on her own, bare feet pounding ahead of the shadows she sees as tendrils reaching out to snare her.
She's getting so tall.
In the morning, sometimes, her eyes flash with a stubborn fire and with all that smoke I can't see the source of the emotions boiling beneath her surface.
I don't know what to say. It's usually the wrong thing.
She exists outside me completely. I've already counted her fingers and toes -- they've always been all there. I've already plumbed the depths of her eyes and felt the enigma of a soul separate from mine. And her skin is not going to slip off. I wouldn't want it to.
But I know her name. I know what I've given her. What I'm still giving her.
And so I will watch her unfold, doing my best to hold whatever she wants me to.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
degrees
The wind! It sounds like the wave pool!
She never heard the ocean but she has the comparison right. These gusts are rolling over us like waves of surf. Pushing against our senses again and again, the work of unseen currents.
Her hair sticks out of her hat and her face turns up to the grey sky and I push the swing away and wait for it to come back again and again and again and again.
***
I'm not really interested in birthing again, I tell my mother with a laugh, partly joking, partly not. I've done this before. I know what it is:
Beautiful. Empowering. Life changing. Surreal. Primal. But also terrifying and terrible, those crescendos of pain that tear a body in two. I haven't forgotten.
Did I ever tell you what my mother said the day I was born? She has, but I let her tell me again. Because I like the story. And hearing her tell of it.
It had been nine years since my sister was born. When my mother was in labor with me and they pulled up to the hospital, she asked my father, "Can we just drive around the block one more time?" She wasn't ready to go in.
I think I know exactly how she felt.
***
I'm in the shower. The sound of the steaming water and the air-circulating fan cocoon me in a space of loud silence. I tweak the temperature -- just a little hotter -- and tell myself one more minute. But then I hear a sound. Sharp. Urgent. Loud over the white noise. I turn off the water and stand still, dripping. I towel up, step out, and flick off the fan.
Listen.
But it's nothing. They're just laughing. Screams of glee that sound just a degree away from cries of pain.
I turn on the hair dryer.
***
My eyes are closing, pen in hand, blank page still blank. But a crack sends sparks of adrenaline down my spine. Thunder always startles me. And it affects me even more so now, knowing that at least one of three sets of eyes have likely been shocked open. They're all scared of storms in the night.
But it's March. It's snowing. The crack was just the snow plow's blade greeting the pavement. The rumble just metal dragging on rock, up one side of the street and down the other. The sound fades as the truck moves to another street. No one wakes up.
***
And so, ready or not, my mother was born. Unconscious of the agony her crossing over caused, blinded for a moment by the lights of this new world, already wrapped up in love as warm as the womb.
Years and years went by. My mother grew up. My grandmother grew old.
When she came to the end of things, I know my mother would have given anything to drive just once more around the block with the woman who carried her, who birthed her. But when my grandmother breathed her last breath, I like to imagine that she rode out of this world on the same waves that washed my mother ashore. Yes, there was agony -- not for her but for the souls she left behind. But then there was the brightness of a new existence. And love swaddling her tight with all the warmth she had ever, ever known. Imprinting it upon her. To take along.
She never heard the ocean but she has the comparison right. These gusts are rolling over us like waves of surf. Pushing against our senses again and again, the work of unseen currents.
Her hair sticks out of her hat and her face turns up to the grey sky and I push the swing away and wait for it to come back again and again and again and again.
***
I'm not really interested in birthing again, I tell my mother with a laugh, partly joking, partly not. I've done this before. I know what it is:
Beautiful. Empowering. Life changing. Surreal. Primal. But also terrifying and terrible, those crescendos of pain that tear a body in two. I haven't forgotten.
Did I ever tell you what my mother said the day I was born? She has, but I let her tell me again. Because I like the story. And hearing her tell of it.
It had been nine years since my sister was born. When my mother was in labor with me and they pulled up to the hospital, she asked my father, "Can we just drive around the block one more time?" She wasn't ready to go in.
I think I know exactly how she felt.
***
I'm in the shower. The sound of the steaming water and the air-circulating fan cocoon me in a space of loud silence. I tweak the temperature -- just a little hotter -- and tell myself one more minute. But then I hear a sound. Sharp. Urgent. Loud over the white noise. I turn off the water and stand still, dripping. I towel up, step out, and flick off the fan.
Listen.
But it's nothing. They're just laughing. Screams of glee that sound just a degree away from cries of pain.
I turn on the hair dryer.
***
My eyes are closing, pen in hand, blank page still blank. But a crack sends sparks of adrenaline down my spine. Thunder always startles me. And it affects me even more so now, knowing that at least one of three sets of eyes have likely been shocked open. They're all scared of storms in the night.
But it's March. It's snowing. The crack was just the snow plow's blade greeting the pavement. The rumble just metal dragging on rock, up one side of the street and down the other. The sound fades as the truck moves to another street. No one wakes up.
***
And so, ready or not, my mother was born. Unconscious of the agony her crossing over caused, blinded for a moment by the lights of this new world, already wrapped up in love as warm as the womb.
Years and years went by. My mother grew up. My grandmother grew old.
When she came to the end of things, I know my mother would have given anything to drive just once more around the block with the woman who carried her, who birthed her. But when my grandmother breathed her last breath, I like to imagine that she rode out of this world on the same waves that washed my mother ashore. Yes, there was agony -- not for her but for the souls she left behind. But then there was the brightness of a new existence. And love swaddling her tight with all the warmth she had ever, ever known. Imprinting it upon her. To take along.
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