don't ever change

Visiting a place where I lived for thirty years feels strange, now.

Coming from the humid Gulf South, Seattle seems so clean, bursting with greenery and efficiency.

Gas is five dollars a gallon.

You don’t have to talk to anyone to do most things like order coffee or buy a $7.99 dress at the thrift store. Even so I talk to clerks and security guards and homeless people and feel gaudy and garrulous and slow.

Don’t ever change, a co-worker crows. You’ve always been just yourself.

You’re such an eccentric, a Southern friend comments, looking at my caftan-y dress and sneakers.

*

My sisters planned a week’s worth of events but I only made it to one-point-five-ish.

After rising at four a.m., flying for 4.5 hours, jumping a dead car battery and sitting in hot traffic for hours, we sat on a porch politely catching up and swatting flies off chunks of juicy watermelon.

We had an enjoyable but subdued Fourth, playing bocce with a restless eight year old, eating veggie dogs and s’mores, and lighting $150 worth of fireworks amid Gen Z diffidence (“that one was mid”).

Then a chaotic brunch, glorious hours on a houseboat and wistful goodbyes.

*

Relief and regret.

How I mostly feel these days.

this is love

How do you celebrate amid grief and worry? 

We did, last week, sisters and nieces and assorted family. Some were unable to join due to work, but the rest of us traveled across states and borders and storms and troubling times to find a bright sliver of hope being together, laughing, bickering, snacking, thrift shopping, remembering.

We celebrated a dear one's victory over a serious illness, and mourned the departure of one less fortunate. We visited my mother's grave, weeping and sipping her beloved diet Dr. Pepper. 

One family member baked the tenderest of cookies, another gifted hand-sewn baskets, others created a space that was gorgeously luxurious.

We did not grow up saying I love you in words and even though now we do, I also know: this is love

well hello March

If January felt like years, like getting sucker-punched daily, February went by in a flash, like a hit-and-run.
I'm writing as best I can.
The horrors are deep and sickening.
Canadians boo USians. (how!?)
We are not who we were 1.5 months ago, not who we thought we were or imagined we could be.
At a parade the other night we watched yet another suburban krewe sashay by to tired '50's tunes. "The good old days," someone commented.
And a friend turned, with a studied look. Good for whom?
*
Family has been familying. I got an unexpectedly sweet thank you from a niece; and then a strange greeting card and even stranger email from other fam. We are all losing it, quietly, desperately, and with a mightily-summoned measure of dignity.

the fam bam (it's been too long)

 

colorado sunflower

BSP went to a family reunion last week.
Those 2 words bring up the feels, of course. I almost didn't go.
Our beloved Gram is no longer with us, I hate traveling and was just generally meh.
But it was pretty great.
It's been four years since our last gathering but it was like no time had passed.
My marathoner cousin picked me up from the airport and we went straight to an outdoor concert for tequila, 90's tunes and a lot of laughs.
One sister and her fam joined in for a warm night under the stars.
The next day we descended on Casa Bonita, the iffy Mexican restaurant of our childhood now restored by the South Park guys. One whiff of
the chlorine out front sent me right back to being a kid, standing in line in the hot sun to get in now replaced by wristbands, ID checks and an X-ray scanner. Inside we oohed over the cute young cliff divers, enjoyed mediocre food and stiff drinks, looked on as ManBearPig lovingly embraced one of my sisters (and tried to steal a sopapilla). A troupe of improv actors we mistook for Village People impersonators ("don't call us villagers") engaged us in round after round of charades. Later we went to the sorcerery show (cringingly OK) and finally made our way out past the final cliff dive.
The next day, the rest of the fam arrived, and the fun blossomed.
--Two sisters and a cousin designed custom reunion t-shirts and then spent hours producing t-shirts, tanks and tote bags
--The Colorado fam hosted, opening their houses and kitchens (and wallets) with delicious food and desserts and comfy beds
--Some of the Kansas fam had to go home 12 hours later, down and out with sickness :(
--My talented sis designed a photo album with themes that made us all laugh and cry
--About 20 of us went to a Rockies/Blue Jays ballgame, had fried snacks and beers and goofed around in the warm, lovely night
--We visited the Mile High Flea Market, a family favorite for secondhand deals, turkey legs and agua fresca and general fun
--Some afternoons we shot hoops in the back yard, playing "horse" and flipping the littlest cousin some crap
--And I got a few precious hours with my sisters, nieces and fam, drinking coffee, reminiscing and just enjoying life
--Our final morning together we had breakfast at a diner, eggs and hashbrowns and coffee, and then hit an antique mall
I spent one last day in Denver, going to Meow Wolf with my sis and her partner (MW=meh), then enjoying plant-based Reubens (pastrami beets! yay!) and palomas at Edgewater Public Market.
The same cuz took me back to the airport my last day, after a pleasant morning of errands and delicious coffee and green chili burrito.
My heart is full, and grateful.

a momash gift

The longer I don’t post here, the worse I feel, and also the harder it is to post.

Bsp has been on the road. In Canada for a week, enjoying family, projects, and delicious vegetarian food (a mezze feast here, vegan pizza here and a Rajasthani thali here). And some non-veg pastries, the best of which were pillowy donuts filled with the lightest of cream fillings. Incredible dining.

*

One of the projects was typing up a handwritten journal we found in a box of family items retrieved from the trash heap in Kansas. A diary my mother wrote when she was 17 years old, a handful of double-sided lined loose papers that covers only half a year or so, but it’s an engagingly immediate piece of writing, of her crushes and friendships and desires, her frustrations with the nuns who educated her -- and alternately, her desire to join the sisters because romance and life sometimes felt so difficult. She adored music and listed bands and songs that touched her: The Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Animals.

I never knew this Mom of course. I feel such a nostalgia for her. How could this vivacious, witty, petty, scheming, big-hearted, fun-loving teenager know that just a year later she’d be unexpectedly pregnant with me, and hastily marrying the father, a guy who never even appears in the journal?

As we draw closer to nineteen years since her passing, I am beyond grateful for this gift of my mother.

in family news

We held an online memorial today for a family member who died in May.
Grieving during a pandemic is so strange.
No hurried excursions to the Midwest, no get togethers at my aunt's or grandma's, no hugs or VFW sheet cake or windy graveside vigils.
I enjoy some of the above under different circumstances--the chocolate cake, for instance, and the gatherings. They are all part of the saying goodbye process, and Zoom is a pretty terrible alternative.
Still, one cousin made a video of photos, which we watched together and commented on, we played a word game and shared memories.
I'm left feeling sad still but not comforted.
It's a complicated passing anyway. I guess this is all we get until future notice.

perspective, bees, and Dina Martina

Walking around outside in the afternoon is rage inducing. Especially in my neighborhood.
People can't resist the allure of the park, hardly anyone wears masks or moves aside on the sidewalk. I need to restrict my exercise walks to early mornings, I guess.
Bemasked, wearing sunglasses and a ballcap, and keeping a vigilant eye out. And taking some deep, hopefully covid-19-free breaths to keep my perspective.
*
The family chat this week was a somewhat clumsy round of Balderdash. We had some laughs; not the usual full-on giggles, but chuckles, anyway. A couple of the younger cousins shared close ups of their noses.
*
Today an early morning misty walk, and a quick run to the grocery store, where the clerk told me they'd had a huge swarm of bees just outside their windows yesterday, apparently searching for their queen. They'd called an emergency beekeeper who came out fully suited up and coaxed the angry bees into a box and took them away, presumably to their queen or another queen. What's next, the clerk said. Locusts?
*
A friend shared Dina Martina's new video, and I've watched it at least 3 times, laughing aloud at the lyrics, the deepfake videos, the sheer lunacy of it all.

the things we say

The things we are having to say to each other are unthinkable.
Some funny, some verging on the really scary.
*
With my significant other, wondering if and when there's a curfew or complete shutdown of the city, whose place we want to be stranded at.
Whose turn is it to stand in line at the grocery store.
Is this cough seasonal allergies or something worse.
*
We have family members who are medical professionals, transit management, law enforcement, and in the armed services. They don't get to work from home. They're the ones keeping society in the US and Canada afloat right now. I'm fine on my couch, but I worry for them.
*
And we have a family member with a less than robust immune system, realizing belatedly they don't own a thermometer, there are none left in the stores, and getting tested is probably not a possibility in the near future.

inventory

I recently fired my shrink.
She's a nice person and I think means well, but I didn't feel like she was listening to me, towards the end.
I was paying her to listen. Why else sit on a faux velvet couch week after week, staring at the potted plants, wondering who else's ass crack has worn the same groove, and then forking over cash at the end of 55 minutes?
Sometimes she made me take a depression inventory, which--if you haven't ever taken one--is pretty depressing on its own. During our second to last visit, I was feeling pretty down--it's been a year of loss and travel and stress--and scored higher than I had in awhile. (Higher is not good.) She counted up the numbers, and then said, almost gaily, "Well your numbers are higher but you're here and you look fine, so let's move on!"
*
One of the questions on the inventory asks if I feel like I've failed more than the average person, and I nearly always put yes. I feel like I have failed a lot. I know I have failed a lot.
I'm writing, yes, and publishing again, but no one cares, not really.
My job is uber-stressful and frustrating. I dread each day. For weeks I had an eye twitch (until I took time off).
I see family and that's fine but it's not fine, there have been outbursts and yelling and mean things said, and it all just gets papered over and forgotten. My nieces have grown up and moved on and that feels lonely. Two of them won't even message me back, not without a double tap or some badgering, and wow does that feel not-good.
*
I want to make changes--major ones--and I'm trying, as hard as I can.
I hope I can survive the deluge.
Also, watching Pose puts my suffering into perspective and gives me hope.

the consequences of truth

It's been weeks of emotional heavy lifting since losing Marguerite, realizing what she had left all of us, and then, two weeks ago, finding among her things a stack of handwritten note cards written by her mother, my great-grandmother. The cards seem to be preparation for writing a memoir--Nan noted she'd need 100,000 words--and are written in a fine, sometimes quite tiny, cursive, as though not quite giving herself permission to express what she was putting down on paper.
*
Because. There is death and despair, a murder, a suicide, and many tales of abuse and alcoholism. And also wonderfully frank observations of neighbors and lovely observations of nature--a pond, wildflowers, wagon rides.
*
It changes you, thinking about your relatives in this way. Staring at the black and white photographs from a hundred plus years ago, realizing that they are actual people and not quite the sainted relics we've imagined them to be. They loved and fought and hated and struggled and triumphed. My grandmother and great-grandmother are two of the strongest people I've ever known, and now, I'm realizing what all the hard times exerted and wrought on them, diamond-like.

unsere Sonnenblume

via GIPHY

I-70, Kansas, March 2019

I haven't, I thought, I didn't (I knew)

I haven't been able to write much, these past couple of weeks. My mind is faraway, in Kansas.
I thought I was ready for goodbye, and it turns out I was not.
I didn't know it would be this hard. (I knew: Dugie, Mom, Grampa. But I had forgotten.)
*
I haven't slept much since mid-March.
I thought she might make it to 100.
I didn't know at 97 she would fight so hard. To stay in the hospital and then to be let go. (I knew she was tough but not this tough.)
*
I haven't stopped feeling sad at a primal level for so long (Dugie, Mom, Grampa, now Her).
I thought you got over it--the loss--that you got closure, you moved on.
I didn't know that they stay with you always, in the beat of the heart and the glimpse of an old photo and the clasp of a hand. (I knew: Dugie, Mom, Grampa, now Her. But I had forgotten.)

the view from the 785

Been thinking about my Kansas fam the past few weeks. This is a shot taken shortly after landing in Wichita last fall. The pilot barely managed to set us down on the edge of a thunderstorm and I feared it was the end of busysmartypants. Instead, we rented a sedan and sped through the dusk to an outdoor country music show, complete with fires in oil drums and one dollar Coors Light.
I've never lived in this part of the world but something about it feels so familiar.
And lovely.

the 785

I spent a couple of days in the 785 this past weekend. With my people.
Where I'm from, technically, but also technically have never really lived.
It feels good to smell the prairie after a thunderstorm.
Never mind that paralyzing terror of experiencing said thunderstorm at thirty thousand feet.
Not to mention the incredible skies after said storm. All shades of blushing sherbet.
*
It feels so good to see family, to hold an elder's hand, to hear voices as familiar to me as breath.
To cackle with laughter over a remembered story.
To walk the same cracked sidewalks, remembering the spring and scratch of buffalo grass underfoot.
*
I try to stay within the moments, not fearing the future, not dreading the coming absence. We have each other, and we have the place. That much we'll always have.

the flatlands

Last weekend I visited family in Colorado and Kansas. My grandmother celebrated a major birthday recently and my cousins, aunt and I agreed it was time for a road trip. Interstate 70 takes you directly from the Denver area into western Kansas, and it was a pleasant drive both directions: unusually warm fall days, calm winds, and the company of family.
I forget each time how beautiful the landscape is, so flat and broad, the sky an enormous blue bowl overhead. At home we see snippets of sky, framed by evergreens or reflected in the coastal sea. In western Kansas, the sky fills your vision, edged with crispy sunflower fields, bristly rolls of hay, furrowed dirt roads, the occasional sparkling pond.
My Kansas aunt cooked up two days' worth of goodies, including coleslaw and pumpkin pie. We wandered downtown, sat in the shade with Gram and my cousin's pet dog, played marbles and talked sports and laughed and reminisced about the ones we've lost. My shrink keeps telling me I'm lonely and I keep saying that I'm not, but I will say that this weekend, I felt like I belonged, like people were looking out for me, and that felt pretty great.

Change is change is

So much is in flux at the moment, and I don't just mean the big bad world.
Preparing for big changes out on the coast, letting go of a treasured object because the object is failing and because if I don't, there will never be room for improvement.
And...I'm moving in a few weeks. Two rent increases over the past two years of 30% are kicking me out the door. I found a new spot, it's smaller but in a more vibrant, arty area, so I'm trying to be okay with it.
I've been cleaning out my closets, donating clothes and shoes to Goodwill, recycling and composting and leaving treasures in the laundry room downstairs.
Among the old mortgage documents and receipts and mementoes from past travels, I discovered documents from a painful time in my family's history--documents I'd forgotten I ever even had.
Words from the past, excuses and evasions.
I found my mother's wooden jewelry box and opened it. I touched a watch and a pair of earrings and her perfume wafted out and I breathed in deeply.
Then I closed the box up tightly, not wanting that familiar smell to fade away.

20000 mile club

I'm back! Exhausted, broke, a little sunburned, but otherwise in good shape.
First to a family reunion--all of us gathered together in Colorado but a beloved cousin--then a return visit to Kisasa Primary School, 10 years after my first trip to Tanzania.
In both cases, I was not well prepared for the actual experience.
There was a curmudgeonly family member I hadn't seen in awhile and wasn't sure how to approach.
The situation in Tanz was not quite what I had imagined either--instead of a group build, it was two or three of us at most. Instead of enjoying a relaxing time catching up with old friends, I felt alone, misunderstood and sometimes attacked, for my American-ness, my lack of religion, for being me.
It was a time to dig deep, to remember why I travel, to suffer cold water showers and endless digs with good humor and sometimes calm replies.
In the end, I renewed some relationships, and made some terrific new friends.
I traveled twenty thousand miles, mostly by myself, including a 9 hour bus ride (watching ripped movies and enjoying a Stoney Tangawizi ginger beer) and arriving after dark, which meant a confusing mission at Ubongo Bus Station to find a cab to take me to my sort-of-obscure hotel.

That first hot shower tho!
And the return journey on Emirates.
I feel alive, I feel challenged, I feel ready for new decisions.

my best self

I wasn't my best self this week.
Stress has gotten the best of me. I was nervous about reading, about an event at work, about a trip west, and my resilience was low. I hope I haven't damaged anything precious.
*
In any case, it was a whirlwind of a week. On Sunday I had the pleasure of reading a very short piece at a poetry event organized by the generous, kind, and talented Koon Woon, at the Beacon Hill Library. That evening, a few of us hopped in a Zipcar and headed for the coast. We sang along the way, and when we ran out of folk tunes and funny songs we tried out Christmas carols. Nothing beats belting out "Jingle Bells" on a pleasant July evening.
The next day was a work day: piling cut-up cedar tree logs in the wheelbarrow, splitting and stacking them; pulling out snarls of blackberry vines, watering the delicate young ferns and leafy salal, mowing some knee-high grassy spots. Suddenly it was me vs angry bee = my bright yellow t-shirt and shorts were a terrible idea, in retrospect.
Then, over to Fort Worden, to our spot for the night, a brick duplex with 4 bedrooms and a tiled bath, a formal dining room and sitting room. We dumped our stuff, shopped at the terrific Co-Op for food and snacks, then headed for the beach. We played tag with the incoming surf, and spotted some fins out on the sound, plus a couple of curious seals, heads gliding along the water's surface. Later on, super nachos, cards and crosswords and a lot of giggling.
Back home on Tuesday, the usual stress of driving and getting gas and groceries and getting everyone where they needed to go. A dinner of grilled cauliflower, corn, and zucchini, and some "Orphan Black," and then right back to the regular work week.
*
The summer is speeding by. I want to remember to take time. To breathe and laugh and enjoy.
Today's music: big band. Here's some Cab Calloway featuring the amazing Nicholas Brothers. I've always been an Astaire & Rogers fan but these two might be better:

change is change

I spent a few days on the coast this week with my favorite 13-year-old. She helped me clean out the trailer my Mom found for me a dozen plus years ago. The Majorca has done well but her floors are saggy and the seams are showing. It's probably time to say good-bye. Which I'm having a tough time doing. We spent a few hours packing up the accumulated stuff--found and claimed a plaid shirt that belonged to my Mom, sent some stuff to Goodwill, recycled a bunch, kept a little bit. Now all that's left is to find a new home. I'm not sure I'm ready.
*
We also had adventures:

• met up with some tree guys to get fallen cedars and ailing cherry trees seen to
• spent hours beachcombing at Crescent Beach, witnessed a massive dead seal, countless tidepools teeming with tiny crabs, pink and green anemone, one jellyfish, and countless mussels, barnacles and limpets. It was the best kind of afternoon..
• got a scare when we wandered through the shadowy tunnels of Camp Hayden--suddenly alone with a strange person in a rental car, we joined hands and ran flat-out and shrieking to safety
• ate greasy spoon breakfasts and yummy Mexican food and a bagful of mango cheeks and boxes of strawberries and jolts of caffeine

now I'm home, running around to a grad party and tomorrow, the Pride parade
*
Summer is upon me, suddenly. Nothing feels as usual. Change is change and it's happening.