Thursday, June 27, 2013

So Much That Day








Today is our 15th wedding anniversary.

And the first thing I said to Michael was -

Don't you need to get going?

It was 6:15. He needed to be picking Jesse up at 6:30 for a morning of bone scans and cat scans to make sure the cancer is not in other places. We are praying for clean. So from my perch, he just wasn't moving fast enough. But no matter what Michael does, he never moves fast enough for me. He is wired way slower, Southern California slow (his home state). He still doesn't know, after fifteen years, what to make of the pace of the Northeast, or me. 

Crazy, maybe?

Michael doesn't go in for name calling.


I on the other hand...

Me = shark swimming through the house.
He = sloth?

It's amazing (and sometimes troubling) how we see the other.

Our beloved other











through our own personal lens of the world, smudged with all the joys + all the wounds from the past, but especially those places that are a finger pressing into tender spot, a sore spot. 


See? You're moving slowly is painful to me. Stop that.

I said, Don't you need to get going? 

What I meant was - 

Come on, come on, our kid has cancer, let's go, get a move on, we'll hug and kiss later, love later, no time for that, happy anniversary, yes yes yes but but but...

As if he wasn't going, as if he was dilly-dallying. 

The true view is he got up and took Jesse with loving care to the hospital for tests. I'm sure they had a good talk on the ride down, maybe a good laugh. In quiet moments he has cried over her, and will do anything within his power to help her. 

And me.
And our whole family.
If he could, he'd make all the bad stuff go away.

He's that kind of man. 

So what's not quite right?


Today is our 15th wedding anniversary. 

The day we married was breezy and cool after a long week of sweltering heat. Tiger lilies were fully open, trumpets/ I remember Michael and I walking that morning, holding hands and talking, enjoying the lightness of the air and the joy of the day. 

We both smiled so much that day, our faces hurt.



















wherever our attention is, 
that is where we are

love now.




xo b




Saturday, June 22, 2013

Feel Yourself Up





























She's always wanted a mohawk.

Mom, I love it. Why did I wait so long?

What pushed her to do it?

breast cancer

Jesse is 

healthy
vibrant
incredibly positive
fiercely loyal
funny
gorgeous
strong

[the list is endless]

She's thirty-one.
Her daughter is six.
She's my kid.

I've been swinging 
between silence and shouting over this thing.

I don't want any pity parties, Jesse said

More like a titty party, Claire said to her older sister










Our warrior bird with a lump, 
smaller than a marble, 
larger than a bb 
tucked under the skin of her right armpit. 

I found it, Mom, because I feel myself up.

Some women won't look at themselves in the mirror.
Some women don't want to see their bodies at all.
Some women hate their bodies. They hate them.

Try love today.

run your own loving hands over your body

yes, your hands over your very own body

belly
thighs
feet
fingers
arms
ass
heart 
breasts

feel yourself up.














What are you waiting to do?


Remember, no pity parties. 

What do you want to 
do
try
see
find
fail at?


cut your hair
take up boxing
sing in the choir
fall in love
feel yourself up
run a race














do it. 

xo b



Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Pure Pause





























June 5. 2013

note to myself: 

I have been curling in on myself, like a snail splattered with salt, over fears of a recently discovered scary health issue facing a loved one  + the closing out of my current work at the local university which I've loved for almost two years 

[God bless grant-funded projects, they come they go]...

but the work thing, 
which always seems to be such a big deal to me, 
where can I do my work, where do I fit
blah blah blah has faded to the periphery.
One door closes, another opens. it's true.

Health trumps money.

I could fill in the details, not today.

I want to write about the other.

The other being

roses splitting open
Elizabeth daughter of my daughter 
running through the sprinkler
painting the small wood bed frame, heron white
small black bear ambling into our neighbor's yard 


The other being

the humming bird, 
spotted on my morning walk
above me on the telephone wire
I happened to look up 

+ saw

the tiny bird with fluttering heart 

in a moment of pure pause 
slowing down to take a breath 

and view the world from up there.