PEOPLE!

It's been eons.
Another person wrote before.
But I'm still here.
Creativity drained.
Sleep deprived.
2 children deep, the littler one rolled off the bed at 5am.
Big bump on his little noggin.
Bad mom/mum/mama.
Wish I had sleep trained him.
But too lazy.
Too tired actually.

It's a juggle.
That's what I keep saying.
This work/mothering life.

There are endless online pieces written to that effect.
But here's my voice.
It's hard people.
The anguished loving I find myself doing.
Where perils are around every corner.
Every ledge.
Every drop.
Every edge.

And the ache of separation.
And the need for individuation.

One sunshine face.
The other twinkle eyed.

My recipe for success survival is:

Apis
Arnica

Bananas
Coffee

More to come.

Mai-ku

Sharp mind, bright lipstick
Grandma Shirley was the boss
She kept her ducks in a row.

A Very True Story

Once upon a time there were two little girls with dark fluffy hair and big front teeth. They like to read, pass notes, doodle and hang upside-down on the bars at school. One played the violin very well. The other one liked to sing. One was taller and the other was smaller. For many years they sat next to each other in class. Passing notes. Giggling. They had a lot to say to each other. They liked words and found people very interesting.

As they got older, things got more serious. They stopped hanging upside down on the monkey bars at school and started drinking coffee. Their hair was still very fluffy.

The little girls weren't so little anymore. They liked where they were from but they wanted to see the world. They fell in love. With many things and a couple of people. Sometimes they fell out of love. They traveled in separate ways all across the globe. Every once and a while they would send each other a little note. They often thought of each other. It wasn't hard. It was like looking at the sky and remembering the color blue.

After one of the girls fell in love, she took the Trans-Siberian railroad from Japan to Amsterdam. She thought about many things and on her way, she picked up a very warm Russian scarf for the other girl. Then she continued her travels across the world and visited the other girl in Peru. It was not too cold in Peru but the scarf was very beautiful. And very useful. When the girls were together in Peru they were very happy. They talked non-stop. For days. They had a lot to say to each other. When they left each other it was sad. And happy at the same time.

The girl took her gift scarf across the ocean to Scotland. She wore it all the time. People told her it was her color. It was warm and sometimes made her sweat on her bike. One day she took off her scarf and left it in the basket of her bike-- and then got on a train. She only realized she had left it when she was already far away. She worried about the scarf.

When she came back, she saw from a distance that the scarf was still there and was only a little wet from the rain that had fallen. In her basket there was a note that said the girl's name and said I love you. She didn't know who it was from. But in her heart she did.

She put the note in her bag, and the scarf around her neck and rode away, with fluffy hair flying behind.

Boarding Call

On the plane I saw a woman carrying a book called Insights on Death and Dying. I had a feeling that she might be a religious freak.



She moved over to sit in the window seat. We had an empty middle seat between us.



She asked me if I was from Salt Lake City. I told her I wasn’t. She asked if I smoked. I told her I didn’t.



She was coming back from her first trip to the big apple. It was a present from her boyfriend for having graduated from Nursing School. Flowers would have been enough she said. She was from Idaho Falls. I had no idea where that was.



I asked, and she told me that she wanted to go into Hospice Nursing. I didn’t really know what that was. She told me that she was drawn to it after caring for her aging grandmother, and comforting her as she died. She said it was the most important thing she has done in her life.



I asked her about her time in New York. She said that she loved it. Shopped, walked. Loved it. She also showed me a bruise that had come after someone, she swears, slipped her roofies when she was out at a club in the village. She told me about a car accident she had after days and days of partying back in Idaho. She showed me the scars on her legs.



She told me that people die the way they lived. If they’ve been fighting their whole lives, they fight until the end. If their lives have been chaotic and confused, so are their final days. I had never thought about it before. Probably because I haven’t known very many deaths.



I told her that I had just left my sick grandmother who I thought at 88 still had a lot of life to live. She told me stories of people who had lived to 96. She told me about a man who wanted to resuscitate his wife of 35 years who was dying of kidney cancer. She told me that the order could have resulted in broken ribs. For him it would have been better than a broken heart. But broken hearts and bodies are unavoidable in this life I said.



She referred to her boyfriend who was 16 years older than she was- with 3 teenagers. Then she mentioned having 6 knee surgeries. And then a drug addiction that lasted 12 years. And then having recently lost 75 pounds. She said she had turned her life around. She said it was god’s hand. I told her she must be proud.



The numbers qualified her life to me.



I told her there must be some reason I had met her. That fate’s twists and turns must have meant for us to meet. She told me she was looking out the window and was wondering at the beauty of the world. With the bright strip of blue as she looked outside. There’s more than us she said.



She told me I looked healthy and that I had a sweet spirit. I told her that her eyes and her future seemed bright.

An Ode to Anxiety

How lovely it is to wake up with a start
To feel short of breath and palpitations in the heart
How wonderful to feel your hair turning grey
And anticipate the pitfalls and problems of the day

It’s fabulous to eat too much, or to hardly eat at all
For the worrying in your head, makes appetite so small
The minor things become massive, and the massive things immense
Chewing away at fingernails, and always feeling tense

From thoughts of natural disasters, to other people’s work
Your husband starts to worry when you start to go bezerk.
But to all the other people, you seem to be so cool
They say to each other, “she’s laid back”, you seem to have them fooled.

The smile’s just a cover, the words are all rehearsed.
Catch her off guard for a minute, she might let the secret burst.

Ode to Make-Up

The first time I saw her, she looked just like a doll
With false extended lashes, pink lips, dressed for a ball

Her skin was smooth and silky, her hair in rings of curls
Her clothes designer- immaculate, around her neck, some pearls.

A beauty no one doubted, a shining work of art.
The next time that I saw her, her world had gone apart.

Adolescence marred by acne, a mustache partly there
I tried not to gasp at her, I struggled not to stare

Dressed in sweats and looking down, I hardly knew her face
The glory I had met before, I could not detect a trace

Ode to BBC Radio

Trust BBC for your global news

In calming voices with neutral views

Of all the stations I could choose

I go for BBC

With that said, it’s all that I can get

NPR an ocean away, I fret

With it’s clever coverage, shows and yet

I have to hear BBC

Even the trivial shows have a serious lull

The radio dramas and stories often so dull

Give me sound of old Karl Casell

Or some fire on BBC

It’s easy to forget that it’s run by state

An idea that most Americans would hate

But instead British people accept it as fate

That the authorities run the BBC

Radio journalism at its best

I mean it in earnest, I don’t protest

It wins awards and stands up to the test

We all count on the BBC