Gentrification

The latest graffiti...

Uhm, Toto, I don't think we're in Brooklyn anymore.

Back Home in Carolina

Almost all my early memories happen on Mama Heaton's front porch. That's why this morning it felt so good to sit on a porch with Eva, to rock back and forth while the wind blew, to tell her stories about watermelon seed spitting and pig tail splitting. This far south, the cherry trees are on fire, and I try to explain home to her. This is home, I say, and later, we're going home. Home, I say again and point to her, then rock until finally she sleeps. Home.

On Pot

From God to sausage to pot...

looks like my posts are going the way of our country!
New post up at PBQ! Read it:
here.
As ever, your comments are greatly appreciated.

Confession Thursdays

I'm running out of things that I'm willing to confess.

Sleep

Last night, I stumbled into the city for a meeting with my writing group, and I was gone for hours. The sun set; the air warmed a bit with a front moving in, and I was alone. No one offered me a seat on the train or held the door for me; no one smiled or nodded or asked how old she was. It was just me and my book and the silver belly of the subway.

I remember a friend telling me that once you have a child you never sleep the same again. And it's true--I seem to stay on the topmost layer of sleep, as if I'm barely skimming its surface, barely running my hand the length of it. My dreams are scattered and sporadic: steak houses, old haunts, beaches, but they leave me as quickly as I find them.

This morning when Eva woke I went to her and she seemed so small. She's been growing and growing, and every day she seems bigger, but this morning I was reminded of how new she is to the world. I changed her and nursed her and held her, and she slept again while I watched her dreams pass over her face. That is what I'm doing still, watching her sleep, remembering what it was like to not be so starkly aware of being alone, remembering my old sleep, running my hand over the surface of my silver-bellied dreams.

Sweet Love

On Sausage Balls & Bracketology

Last week it was God, this week it's basketball...
New post on the PBQ blog.
More comments please!
Find it:
here.

Confession Thursdays

I could stay here for a loooooooong time.

Almost 110

Evabird, tomorrow you will have been on earth for 110 days, and so today we celebrated. There were roosters in the street and Chinese paper kites in the air; hot-tubbing after breakfast and chocolate-eating before dusk; and you, my sweet one, looked out into the ocean with the same blue wonder you look at everything. It has been 109 days since you were born, and in those days, a butterfly has landed on you; you've been to seven states and seen great art and known great love; you've stared out at the sea and sat under the Oklahoma sky. Happy birthday, my little love. May tonight's dreams be your sweetest yet.

Gone Fishin'

Have just packed up the tiniest swimsuit--for Eva not for me!!!--and am headed to Key West for a visit with an old friend. I can hardly imagine how Eva will feel after all these months of layers and layers of clothes and blankets, can hardly imagine how I'll feel watching her face as she sees the ocean for the very first time. Hmm...sometimes I wonder what took me so long to have children...

My Two Loves

On Noodles & God

Okay, folks, so every Friday, I'll be blogging over
at the Painted Bride Quarterly site.
The senior editors from Philly & New York are having a bit of a blog-a-thon,
so please, go look at what I have to say about noodles & God:
here.
And pleeeeeeeeeease comment.
Did I say pretty please?
(With, of course, a cherry on top.)

Confession Thursdays

Any time I see the Statue of Liberty I feel compelled to pump my arm in the air and yell "Freedom!" It's much easier to not look like a crazy lady now that I usually have a baby with me. I just pretend I'm pointing at the birds.

Poem

Making the House Ready for the Lord
by Mary Oliver

D ear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice—it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances—but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.

The One Hundredth Day

Eva, on your one hundredth day, it rained, and we slept late then walked the slick streets. I felt bad that the color that saturated our weekend had given way to such gray. Some days it rains, I told you. The clouds just get too heavy. When we got home, I burnt the toast and begged you to nap but you wouldn't, so we laid in bed and read poems, and the rain kept falling. Some days, I said, it's Monday and it rains. And then you cried. You were just so very tired and you cried. Some days, it's Monday and it rains and you lay in bed and cry and read poems. And that's okay, I told you. It might even be beautiful.

Day 99

Evabird, day 99, and the weather is warming, and the cherry blossoms are on their way to blooming, and you, my little love, are blooming too. Yesterday, we stood with friends on the street corner, and we were all so in love with you, so delighted by your smile, that we missed the light to cross. We thought we might never need to go anywhere, that we would be perfectly content staring down at you, but we moved on anyway and found ourselves with a wide-eyed you at the farmer's market marveling at the giant sweet potatoes and buckets of tulips, the fresh cheeses and crusty bread. Later, you and I wandered the promenade and watched the sun set over the city. Ah, girly bird, it hasn't even been a hundred days, and already you have cracked my heart open so wide and deep that I can't even remember life without you. O, my littlest love, bloom. Bloom. Bloom.

Confession Thursdays

So...I've decided to confess something every Thursday, and I'd love if you'd join me by commenting here or by posting a Thursday Confession on your own blog.

Deep breath (in preparation for redemption).

Today's confession: I have to admit--sitting here attached to the pump in preparation for going to teach--that it feels good to have some other responsibility today. Sometimes the weight of being a mother is massive. Is she being stimulated enough? Overstimulated? Shouldn't she be napping/eating/pooping/batting at things/shaking a rattle/doing sign language?

This morning, though, I've got other things on my mind (or do I?). Regardless, it's nice to know she's upstairs asleep next to her dad, and for the next few hours, she's someone else's responsibility. That way if she ends up in therapy when she's in her twenties, I can blame it on all those cold Thursday mornings when I'd leave my infant child at home to go to teach poetry.

Thank God I'm not a Brain Surgeon

So tomorrow I'm going back to work--just for a few hours, a Thursday morning poetry-teaching gig to last me through summer--but I'm terrified. I'm afraid I'll walk in and start counting toes and talking about piggies going to market; I'll holler out Old MacDonald and sing tweet tweet tweet; I'll make raspberries and say A-goo and roll 'em up, roll 'em up, throw 'em in a pan.

I don't know how women do it. I understand why they would want to or why they might need to, but really, I've been wearing this mommy hat [trust me: the hat-hair (read: wild garbled unwashed mess) is evidence] for so long now that putting on my working hat--let alone buttoning my working pants!--seems next to impossible.

Hello, I will say, I'm your poetry teacher, and I'll cross my fingers that I don't have poop on my shoulder or milk spots on my shirt. What is poetry? I'll ask them. The light will stream through the windows, and hopefully, someone will raise a hand and say something--anything--because right now, I'm not sure what I'd say if the room stayed silent.

The Scrambler- Issue 25, December 2008

Old poems found a new home. So glad. Poems need good homes.

The Scrambler- Issue 25, December 2008
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Snow Song