for Vivian
I want to love you
the way the spool
loves the yarn.
For a time, the spool
gives the yarn shape
before the yarn becomes
its own beautiful form—
a sweater, a sock, a blanket,
something warm,
perhaps soft.
No one thinks then
of the work of the spool.
There is a part of me,
who does not want
to be forgotten.
But I know what it’s like
to be close to you,
wrapped in you,
then slowly spun out
as I let you go.
There’s more joy
in being useful
than I could have known,
bittersweet joy in the unwinding,
true joy in watching you
become more yourself,
true joy in watching you grow.
Posts Tagged ‘daughter’
Song of the Spool
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, letting go, parenting, spool, usefulness, yarn on February 8, 2024| 4 Comments »
Inner Fusion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, driving, father, gratefulness, grief, memory, New York on January 11, 2024| 8 Comments »
How does it happen,
you’re driving and the mind
opens a door closed for decades
and suddenly you’re sitting
at an elegant white table
with white linen napkins
and a single white rose
in a restaurant in The Plaza Hotel
in downtown New York City
and your father sits across
from you, his smile wide,
his eyes bright, and you’re fifteen
and you’ve never before
been in a place like this
and it’s wonderful, this strange
and beautiful scene where
you don’t belong and yet
all worlds seem to merge into this one
where you’re driving through snow
on the winding river road and
your father is here holding your hand
as you look at the menu and
accelerate through the curve
as he taught you and
he loves you and though
he is dead now, you can’t stop
saying thank you.
Because in a year or twenty I won’t remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, indwelling, memory, moment, time on January 7, 2024| 10 Comments »
the way this afternoon my daughter
wraps her arms around my shoulders
and hangs for a moment on my frame,
because I won’t remember
the simple curl of her smile
and how our necks bow forward slightly
so our foreheads lightly touch,
because I don’t remember hundreds of millions
of other small and precious slivers,
I let myself fully dwell into these seconds—
the warmth of her skin, the cool air of her room,
her window open even mid-winter—
and I pour myself into this moment
knowing how a liquid takes on the shape
of its container, and oh, how I long
to be shaped by this, even if it’s only for now.
Make Over
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, mom, quiet on January 4, 2024| 8 Comments »
Mom and I apply the thin film
of the facial masks,
mine pomegranate, hers cherry,
and I laugh at our images in the mirror,
the strange pearly gel sticking to our skin.
We find a sunny spot in the room
and for twenty minutes we lie there,
eyes closed, holding hands.
The package claims my skin will become
more hydrated, softer.
In truth, all of me is softer
as I give in to the slowness,
give in to the quiet, give in
to low warm light and let myself
be wholly here with my mom
as the masks make us look ridiculous
and the whole rest of the world
more beautiful.
A Choice I Never Noticed Before
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, daughter, grace, grief on January 2, 2024| 15 Comments »
For no reason, this morning
I dance through the rooms,
my socks sliding on the wood floors
and I twirl and glide and chacha
as if the house is an empty stage.
I think of my daughter who chassés
and leaps—in toe shoes no less—
and I have none of her finesse,
and yet this morning something in me
says dance, though I woke
feeling broken, though I woke
wearing the great gray cloak of grief.
Who could say where it came from,
the impulse to shimmy, to raise
my arms above my head
and swirl my wrists and
fling back my neck till the grief
is light as gauze? I am grateful
for this mystery, how it saves me,
grateful for this inner beat that says,
dance, time to dance, dear woman,
you have everything to gain
in this moment if you dance.
Falling All the Way In
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, eternity, happiness, moment, mother, tenderness on January 2, 2024| 7 Comments »
Late, and I lie on the couch,
my head in mom’s lap,
eyelids heavy as she pulls
slender fingers through my hair,
and I am more loved
than lost, more soft
than strong, more flesh
than worry, more no self
than self. I am not
thinking of happiness,
which is, perhaps,
the truest kind of happiness.
The moment loses any lines
that might try to define
what a moment is
until all is suffused with eternity
and tenderness is uncontainable.
Her hands move slow
and the room is quiet
and the night is a nest
big enough to hold us all.
Reasons to Celebrate
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged baking, cake, daughter, mother, Timothee Chalamet, transformation on December 28, 2023| 7 Comments »
Chocolate, of course,
the cake we baked
to celebrate the birthday
of Timothée Chalamet,
not that he will ever
taste it to know
we added pure imagination
with the sugar, the butter,
the flour, the grated beets.
Still, such joy as we baked,
as we sang. Such joy
as we made the sweet batter,
as we buttered and floured
the pans, as we waited
for heat to do its good hot work
transforming sugar and flour
into cake. Every day
the heart breaks and today
there is also the chance to play,
to make joy where before
there was only an egg,
a pinch of salt, a bit of milk,
some flour, two empty pans.
*
yes, friends, you may recall this is our THIRD year baking cakes for Timothée Hal Chalomet. He’s basically one of the family now!
Somewhere in the Universe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Christmas, daughter, family, mother, space on December 24, 2023| 20 Comments »
There is this hour when my mother
and daughter and I are side by side
shaping soft red dough into tiny balls
to add to the green spritz wreaths;
the kitchen smells of almond
and butter, and there are carols
on the stereo and it’s going to snow.
Yes, I know there are thousands
of imperfect moments,
but there is also this moment
when I find myself smiling
in a small kitchen in a narrow river valley
in a vast mountain range on a large continent
on a smallish planet in one galaxy among
the hundreds of billions that somehow
all belong to a universe that’s expanding faster
than we think it should—
and as I hum along to a medieval hymn
about how a rose is blooming,
my heart scoured, my heart full,
how is it I, too, am a chord unfolding from minor
to major amid the cold of winter?
How is it I am a rose blooming bright,
faster than I think I should,
this dark season strangely blessed?
Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, conversation, daughter, mother on December 10, 2023| 8 Comments »
Sometimes you spill your fears
into the room and there is no place on earth
then more holy as your words unfurl like curls
of incense in fractaled unspiraling,
each sob, each murmur a tendril of smoke
I follow until it disappears.
How I treasure these times
when you let me meet all of you.
When I leave, I look the same,
the scent of truth clinging to my skin.
But I am rearranged within.
One Traveling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, travel on November 20, 2023| 6 Comments »
while sitting in 24 E
when my girl rests her head on my shoulder
already I’ve arrived
While in the Middle of Many Errands
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awe, birdsong, daughter, parkinglot on November 12, 2023| 13 Comments »
At the edge of the Big Five parking lot,
in a tree still fully leafed out in November,
there must have been hundreds of invisible birds
all singing as if singing is what a day is for,
and the riotous song traveled
over the vast black asphalt sea
crossing all the organizing straight white lines—
so much song for such a small tree—
and stunned, my daughter and I stood and listened,
our rush stopped by the glorious commotion,
as if awe is what a day is for,
as if we exist to be stretched ever wider by disbelief,
as if we are here to know ourselves
as part of something greater,
the world calling us again and again
deeper into the mystery.
On a Night When My Daughter Is Struggling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, daughter, love, mother, presence, struggle on November 8, 2023| 18 Comments »
I won’t tell her it is up to her
to repair the broken world.
Perhaps that comes later
with pen or needle, pointe shoe or song.
But for now, the thing to do
is to sit together in the broken world
and feel how it is to be broken.
To let shame sit with us.
Let grief sit with us.
To feel the sharp nails of fear.
It is not wrong to feel small,
to feel frightened, to be lost.
Nor must we feel these things alone.
So for now, I sit with her
in the brokenness
with no tools, no salve,
no metaphor of redemption.
It is not enough, perhaps
to meet brokenness
with nothing but love
and breath and a willingness
to be nowhere but here,
but in this broken moment,
it is everything.
On All Saints’ Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged all saints' day, daughter, father, saint on November 1, 2023| 8 Comments »
A Saint is someone who has become fully themselves and left a legacy of courage, compassion or creativity that has left a light to encourage us on our path.
—Kayleen Asbo
If, as my friend suggests,
a saint is someone
who has become fully themselves,
who offers us a light on our path,
then you, Dad, are a saint.
Saint of fishermen who stand
in freezing rain. Saint of fathers
of daughters who want to be poets.
Saint of grandfathers
who listen to their grandchildren’s stories.
Saint of ice cream lovers.
Saint of men who remember
to bring their wives flowers.
Saint of cars with loud horns.
Saint of those who giggle till they cry.
Saint of rummage sales
and all who fix everything with duct tape.
And you are the saint of the ones
who are in terrible pain
and yet wake up each morning
and bring kindness.
And you are the saint of the ones
with fathers who were cruel
and did not pass on that cruelty.
And you are the saint
of fathers who coach wrestling
to their sons.
The saint of fathers who cry
at their daughter’s plays.
The saint of this woman
who loves you,
saint of this woman
still learning to pray.
Balancing Act
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, family, father, memory, support on October 29, 2023| 6 Comments »
When I was a girl, my father
would lie on his back, palms up.
I’d step barefoot into his hands
and slowly, slowly, he’d lift me.
I’d balance above him, floating
like an angel, like a circus star,
like a little girl who trusts her dad
to support her. Fifty years later,
I still feel his hands on my soles—
even this moment, I could rise.
Anastomosis
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, healing, hospital, mom on October 17, 2023| 15 Comments »
It means “connection between two passageways.”
It means “place where two rivers meet.”
It means, “here is where necrotized intestine
can be cut away and a woman can be healed.”
It means, “seam where sepsis might begin
through the tiniest of micro perforations.”
It means, “my mother endured such pain.”
It’s so fine, the line between healing and crisis.
So elusive, the word that means
“I know my own life because it’s connected with hers.”
And I, who never before
had even heard of anastomosis,
I, who even yesterday could not spell
nor pronounce it,
I now know too well the five-syllable word
that means “fallible healer,” “essential danger,”
this word that describes the very place
where a life might be saved,
then nearly lost, then saved again.
Years Later, the Awe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, light, memory, mother, time on September 27, 2023| 10 Comments »
Sometimes, for no reason, I remember
a car ride with my mother, driving
the old frontage road from school to home,
and I don’t remember what we spoke of,
don’t remember which car we were in,
don’t remember how old I was,
I remember only the way a bow of light
seemed to connect the sun
to the hood of our car, as if we were being
led forward by light itself, and
I, who knew so little of life, felt so deeply
and sweetly tethered to beauty.
Decades later, I still recall that awe,
but now I focus more on the woman
who sat in the driver’s seat, consider
how luminous she is, consider
the radiant bow that links her life to mine,
how even hundreds of miles away
she leads me with her light.
*
Learning to Be Soft
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, father, softness, tenderness on September 18, 2023| 5 Comments »
for my father
He was a large man, but soft,
his body no longer chiseled
from football, from youth.
To be held by him
was to be enveloped,
to be cradled, to feel wrapped
in his presence. He was soft.
Except, of course, when he wasn’t.
I had seen his anger turn steel,
turn sword. I knew the full weight
of his no. Perhaps that is why
I knew the great value of how soft
he was with me. I was shaped
as much by his tenderness
as I was by the firmness of his rules,
shaped by the warmth in his voice,
shaped by his gentleness
when I confessed my darkest shame.
One night, when I came to him, broken,
scared of the ways I had hurt others
and myself, he did not rail,
did not blame, did not speak in claws
or spears. He spoke in gauze,
in salve, in velvet cushion,
and though it would be years
before the wounds were healed,
the healing began that night.
In softness.
I remember, even now,
how he held me—
how his softness invited my own.
How I still feel him, holding me—
his softness, my softness.
our strength
Survival
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, driving, softening, survival on September 17, 2023| 13 Comments »
At the left hand turn
at the busy intersection,
my fifteen-year-old daughter
tenses in her body,
her fingers grip the wheel,
her breath comes fast.
What do I do? she asks,
voice tight with fear.
My hand wants to clutch at the door.
I do not.
My chest clenches with alarm.
I will my body beside her to be soft.
I speak in hushed tones.
Drive forward. Now wait. Now go.
And the turn is made
and her shoulders relax.
My shoulders relax.
I praise her as again,
she picks up speed
and follows the yellow center line.
Later my friend tells me
that sometimes she fakes being soft
as a way to buy time
until a genuine softness arrives—
she says it’s a way to not do damage
while she regulates herself.
I marvel at all the ways
we learn to survive—
there is fight, flight and freeze,
and there is softening.
Softening, which allows
the next step to be light.
Softening, which leaves space
for goodness to arise.
Softening, which helps us
to meet the intersection
of the next moment
as if it’s an open road.
In Rhythm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amphibrach, connection, daughter, meter, mother, night, path, sundown on September 4, 2023| 10 Comments »
Walking the ridge when the sunset
is almost a memory, my daughter
and I make our way through the dark
and we sing an old tune taking turns
with the words and although we can’t see
the dirt road right beneath us, we trust
the road’s there as we step, step again, step again—
it is like that, this life, we lose sight of the path
but sometimes there’s singing,
and sometimes, a loved one’s beside you,
and how does this happen,
the dark’s no less dark,
and the path’s no less lost,
but your feet stay in synch as you step,
step again, step again.
After the Film
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camera, daughter, film, mother, night, stars on September 2, 2023| 5 Comments »
We leave the desert flats of Australia
and the axe and the snakes and the flames
and walk into the quiet, starlit night
and become two characters in our own lives.
This is the part where the mother and daughter
lean into each other and walk extra close
so they can speak in tones so low
the audience can’t hear their words.
The camera follows them with a low angle tracking shot
focused on where their hands are joined,
then it tilts to the sky to end the scene
in an extremely wide shot where our characters
are barely a blip on the screen,
surrounded by infinite mystery,
the stars, the only lights.