The Wisdom of Clouds
“ You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.” Pema Chodron CIRRUS You are wisp, feet rarely touching dirt. Your gaze cannot be met. They call it lazy eye, but we know better. How could anyone expect you to hone a vision when you straddle a few different dimensions most of the time? […]
Prospecting for Grace
Praise The faithful sun, generously stirring energies of Earth and atmosphere, coaxing every green thing towards the rising song of spring. Parents walking with their children outside, smiling and laughing, nodding at neighbors out washing their cars. Quieted streets yielding their usual ruthless noise to melodious birdsong, squirrels rustling in the brush, the wind whistling […]
The Uninvited Guests
What a time! We are seeing and hearing wide ranging effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on, it seems, every populated part of our planet. In our corner of the world, Bink’s autism and accompanying dependence on schedules has collided headfirst with current realities. Every activity in her life, from her weekday program to her favored […]
Communicable
PROPAGATION I’ve taken to humming in the produce section while caressing the plums, sneaking sniffs of the cilantro, eyeing the lemons, audacious in their yellowry. It’s a low, soothing thing, the thrum of air over vocal chords, nearly a buzz, and I am almost a bumblebee, hovering over color, circling the end caps as I […]
Harmonious Discord
This morning I walked early, mismatched garments layered to repel a cold, spitting rain. I’d pushed his baseball cap down hard over the knitted ear band I bought to share with her, which she most emphatically rejected for not being soft enough, or pink. Featherweight Bean jacket— the one that lifts me to frequent if […]
Brown Girl Hair Has Left the Building
Bink loves girl hair. For the uninitiated, this translates to long straight hair hanging down, on a female of any age. Preferably, the hair should be visible equally on the right and left sides of her head. I’ve had long brown hair for 25 of my daughter’s 27 years. At one point, it grazed the […]
My Bread and Butter
Hello, dear blog. Hello, faithful tribe of readers. My neglect this past month stems not from writers block, but from posting block. Yes, it’s a thing, one which might even merit capitalization. Posting Block. I have spent mornings and nights in awe of the earth’s revolutions, the comings and goings of light and darkness. I’ve […]
Imagine the Harvest
Mercy What if we had drills, not just for disasters, fires and hurricanes, not just for active school shooters and any possible terrorisms both foreign and domestic, what if we had rigorous training in kindnesses: how to recognize them incoming, start a volley with the perpetrators. Imagine preparations for frequent barrages of mutual respect, muscle […]
Temporal Tryst
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero, meaning “seize the day while trusting as little as possible on what tomorrow might bring”. Tomorrow In a daytime dream, the kind of interlude I once slipped into and out of as easily as frog to pond, and as shiny, with the slick lubricant of youth, I met some […]
Hearing the Ocean in a Tea Cup ( again)
The Sea, the Sea I met the Pacific in 1982, she in her blue-green majesty, and I, in perpetual denim, my words untested and eyes not yet jaded. For twelve months, hundreds of days, I lived so close I could sense her depths by the movement of fine hairs on my forearms, her salt with […]