Six Ways to Sunday

Read this heartbreaker:

my pappy running a marathon
for his mom (my grandmother) this Sunday.
So much love.

Dream 429

Dreamed Eva was putting small things in her mouth: little plastic tags from clothing, pieces of torn up paper, tiny Guatemalan worry dolls, rose petals. She was laying on a bed made only of things that could choke her. Then I held her and whispered no, but from the other room she cried, and so we both woke, and I nursed her and tried again to explain that time had shifted, that we were back in Brooklyn and Mykonos was worlds away, that we'd feel better soon; night will be night and day will be day. I'm not sure she believed me.

Reality Check

Yesterday...the Aegean Sea.

Today...massive jet lag.

Under the Sky

What's under the sky, Eva, is the roof, and under the roof, the ceiling. At home, you stare at the ceiling fan for what seems like hours. I make tea or kiss your belly or cross out words I no longer want or put your toes to your nose, and still you stare at the fan, smiling, laughing, at me, the fan, me again. Yesterday, here in Rome, after seeing the bones of lions and boars excavated from the coliseum; after roaming the Forum; after visiting Ostia Antica and eating fresh pasta and drinking a bit of local wine from a tiny glass; after walking the wide marble floors of St. Peter's, I took you from the carrier that you had snuggled in all day, and we stood in the Sistine Chapel. Above us, Michelangelo's world, and I carried you in my arms as you stared up. Those are angels, I said, and, That's God. See how he's reaching his hand down to touch the man, and those are more angels. Under all that wild heavenly color, I wondered if you would ever find happiness in another ceiling again.

Day 141

Heading to Rome. By Day 145, we'll be in Greece. Feeling like a couple of really lucky birds...

On Unicorns & Pirates

Tackling our childhood mythologies via current events...

New post up at PBQ.
Find it:
here.

Day 138

It seems she's discovered my hands. She takes one in her own two hands and spins it around, gnaws on the knuckle of my thumb then on her own thumb knuckle. These are mama's hands, I tell her. One day you'll get big and your Eva hands will be big like mama's. I tell her all we can do with our hands: write poems and do dishes and wave, make snowballs and meatballs and touch waterfalls, and if you hook your thumbs like this, and spread your fingers wide, you can make a bird, I say. Pick flowers, say grace. I could go on for days; it's as if I too have just discovered my hands.

Day 137

The day I realize that yesterday was actually Day 136; yesterday, when an old student came by and I answered the door in my pajamas; yesterday, when the old student offered chocolate, and I thanked her--probably too profusely--then served her lukewarm tea because I hadn't remembered to turn on the kettle. I thought it was because of the baby, she said, so I wouldn't burn her.

We sat with our lukewarm tea and our foil-wrapped chocolates, and it struck me that this fiercely independent young woman, who's just gotten into law school and wants to see even more of the world, was probably tacking on a few more years until the time she wants to have a baby. Had I remembered she was coming and slopped on some concealer, she might feel very differently. But it's incredible, I kept telling her. Best thing I've ever done. And though I meant it with all my heart, she seemed suspicious. I guess that's what it means to be 22. Ah 22...

Day 135

But it might as well be day 8. That's how tired and clueless I feel.

The Bird's First Easter

On Big Sky & Beef Jerky

New post up at Painted Bride Quarterly!

Check it out:
here.

Thursday Confessions

I can't wait to sneak bites of her chocolate bunny.

The History of my Sense of Humor

It was seventh grade. JoAnna was "going with" Jason who was smart and had really blue eyes, and it was Valentine's Day. Or maybe it wasn't Valentine's Day, but it was some special day, and we're all sitting in the cafeteria sucking on chocolate milk and waiting for school to start, and Jason brings in this book, and on the front of it, it says "What I Know about JoAnna," and we're all like, oh wow, how romantic, thinking it would talk about the way she keeps her eyes half-opened when she kisses or how maybe she's still afraid of the dark or how when she grows up she wants to move to the beach, but then we open it, and it's empty. Completely empty.

And we start laughing. Hysterically. It's a joke, we say, he knows nothing about you. Get it? Nothing. I think I laughed for about two weeks.

Sometimes now, when someone who is a complete enigma to me says something like, "You don't know me," I think, yep, you're so right, I've got a book at home about how well I know you; I've got a whole stack that people give me for the holidays! And then I kind of laugh, but the sky does that weird tipping thing and the bizarre-o ukulele music starts playing, and then I'm not laughing anymore. I'm just sitting there with my empty book, wondering yet again if the trees will ever bloom.

Home Sick, Day 4

Also known as that Monday when it kept raining and friends brought by trashy magazines and daffodils and juice which we took through the mail slot; the day of the aspirator and the thermometer; the day the bird's cry was heartbreakingly weak because her throat was so sore; the day I tried to bag up my maternity clothes but instead left them in sheepish piles all over the house; the day I wrapped a hot dog in a paper towel, microwaved it for thirty seconds and called it lunch; the day the bird couldn't eat because she couldn't breathe; the day we cried, read poems, put away the poems and went back to the trashy magazines; the day of pale skin and Kleenexes and little eyedroppers of infant Tylenol; the day with all its mama-loves-her-little-bird songs and rain-rain-go-away songs and mama-promises-May-will-come-soon-and-bring-jillions-of--pink-blooms songs, all its feel-better and sleep-now and I'm-sorry songs, song after song keeping time with the beat of the rain.

I Am Mommy

Mommy, mommy, mommy. Mommy this and mommy that, mommy tit for mommy tat. Mommy red and mommy blue, mommy left her brain in a shoe. Mommy squeals and mommy squawks, this is the way that mommy talks. Mommy wide and mommy deep, mommy forgot to get some sleep! Mommy's sick and mommy's tired, mommy's feeling a little wired. Mommy might go on all night, but, uhm, that would probably get really old.

On Sand Dollars...

Unrequited love & autism.

New post up at Painted Bride Quarterly!
Read it:
here.

Grace

Bagged Dinner

I emptied half a bag of lettuce onto a plate and threw pulled-off pieces of already-cooked chicken on top of it. Dinner, I told my husband. It had been a hundred years since I had slept. My hair was dirty; my eyes, old. This was last night.

We have to decide what kind of parents we want to be, I said. Do we just lay her in her bed and let her scream bloody murder until she's asleep or do we coddlecoddlecoddle her and end up with a teenager in OUR bed and never have any time for ourselves again?

I licked chicken carcass off my fingers; the same old jazz poured from our kitchen speakers. I might be losing my mind, I said.

Might? He smiled. I waved the knife in the air, a small, sharp one that we received for a wedding gift.

On the other side of the room, Eva slept soundlessly, which she again did, after being fed and bathed and read to, all through the night, until the sun eeked in, and with a full night's sleep in me, I held her. My mind, it seems, has returned. Now, if I can just get around to washing my hair.