This is why I’m old (this is why, this is why I’m old)
Because I fall asleep in movies. Because I say, shut the door, don’t let the flies in! Because I have a six step skin-care routine. Because I say, the crusts are the best part! Because I have twin cracks of consternation in between my eyebrows. Because I said so. Because I sang the Captain Planet theme song to someone who looked at me blankly. Because I say, is that how you talk to your mother? Because I remember dial-up internet. Because my hips ache. Because I have a special pillow. Because I say, Mummy needs a nap. Because I want to buy clogs. Because a teenager said to me, “Do you even know what SnapChat is?” Because I am never, ever getting back together with low-rise jeans. Because I don’t care.
Expectations
We expect so much from our children these days, I say, shaking my head, as if my own expectations are not sky-high, as if I do not ask my oldest to erase her giant, looping letters to fit neatly in between the lines, as if I do not ask her to express her anger in grown-up ways even I cannot muster— funnel it into a pillow, perhaps, or cover it up with a kind and gentle tone. Do you think your expectations are a bit too high? asks the woman I pay to tell me the truth about myself. I study the carpet. I am realistic, I say. My husband will laugh when I tell him this, later. At night, I dream about my daughter talking with some faceless woman she pays to tell her the truth about herself. She, too, studies the carpet. The internet tells me to communicate a confidence, a sturdiness at all times, but I can’t help it. In the morning, I wake up and beg: I love you. I love you. You know that I love you, right?
Let me tell you how it ends
it ends in loss, death, brown piles of decay that leaf you crushed under your boot and watched the wind carry away gone just like that belief you crumpled up and dropped into the gutter last week you want a happy ending, an easy button, a fast forward option but you can’t skip this part you’re stripped bare now there’s nothing left to hide behind it’s going to get colder and darker so no, I’m not going to give you a fairy tale that leaf is gone but something new, something different is waiting so watch for that first sign of green for the unfurling slowly, painfully at first and then and then
Watching the Spirit Move an Inch with Mary
Going the distance looks a lot like the literal edge of your seat when you happen to be homebound on account of your abdomen becoming Death Valley somewhere between your morning coffee and your afternoon nibble. It was supposed to be an ordinary Saturday. This deformation is no one’s fault. But damn, it hurts. Time is the convention of order. And this movement, this shift right here, this transfer of energy, this light and delight of rods and cones, and leaning forward that became part of becoming is an era of seconds. She begged the south window about the snow geese just a week ago. And the very next, she learned about Mary Oliver and the flight of the untamed when a fledgling unfolded Wild Geese from her pocket and read it aloud. This, this, this is when the spirit moved, consolidating and compressing the planes of molecules across two faces in the place of living things.
Space Exploration (or Kindergarten Registration)
His (no longer baby) feet blast each wooden stair, the explosions reverberate around our (no longer quiet) house. Rest time complete, he enters my orbit. What Tonie story were you listening to? I pull the invisible safety tether connecting him to my spaceship. Astronauts. He jumps into the crater between my side and the couch. Tell me about it. He rolls until his bottom rests between my hip bones and his head is under my chin. I don’t want to go to Mercury. I inhale until my belly fills the curve of his back, and I wonder how much longer he will wash with Johnson & Johnson cotton scented shampoo (Forever?). A few hours ago I clicked the blue Submit button to register him for kindergarten. I was surprised not to cry tears gathered behind my unblinking brown eyes. Mercury is too close to the sun. We would be way too hot. Does he know he keeps me in orbit? Pulling love, joy, passion, innocence back to center? Will he return to my galaxy? I scream into the void and sound disappears like light into a black hole. I can’t imagine a world where he won’t remove his helmet and give me sloppy, open mouth kisses. I love you. I love you. I love you.
vertigo
On the walk to school dismissal it hits me The ground lurches beneath my feet A tidal wave surges from the left The once-familiar neighborhood flips inside out And I am underwater I have always known that the world spins Every elementary science curriculum covers it Ms. Frizzle said it too But now I *know* the world spins And the ferocity of it sweeps me off my feet With slow, plodding steps I close one eye Give my brain one less thing to pitch And there is my daughter Braided pigtails shining in the sun Just make it to her My brain pleads Just make it to my girl Willing limbs of jelly to obey How many times has the world taken to spinning? Leaving me, the mother swaying in the crowd And my children an anchor Their hope a lighthouse Their brightness the light that draws me back to shore Here comes the spin again I brace for impact, resolute This time I will train my open eye on what is solid I will fix myself to what is true
worth the wait
they say to bloom where you are planted. but nature knows better than to fight through scorched earth or burn through the fall’s first frost. you never believed in the wisdom of the seasons. never studied the lessons of things that wait. but the flowers have whispered to me in my sleep: you cannot force growth. of this i am sure. i do not bloom easily but i am worth the wait.
It’s My First Time Being a Parent
I want to give you a good life. Want to press tools into your resistant fingers. Want to show you how to walk softly so the wolves won't leap into the road and tear you apart. Already, they're licking their jaws, teeth glinting in the floodlights behind the middle school. I have failed. Let you starve for two days as a baby when I didn't know how to make you eat. Let you wander, mapless, for nine years as I questioned what was "normal." You yell across the dinner table and your eyes are accusations-- tears you don't want to cry flooding the stone barricade of your face. I'm sorry. I'm trying. I thought maybe I would be the first parent to never hurt their child.
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Love!
Wow! All of this! 🔥