walking in chill air
beside the frozen creek
warm words
Posts Tagged ‘family’
One Connection
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, conversation, family, walking, winter on December 26, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Eat More Slush Mush
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breakfast, Christmas, family, play, slush mush, tradition on December 25, 2020| 1 Comment »
The first year I won the Slush Mush contest
I was shocked as my grandfather read a long, official letter
to everyone else around the Christmas tree
about how my entry into the Slush Mush Breakfast Cereal contest
had been the best one received that year.
I didn’t remember entering.
In fact, I was sure I had not.
Yet I won a puzzle.
Another year my brother won.
Or my mother. Or my cousin.
And each Christmas morning, my grandfather read
the long official letter
which always ended “Eat more Slush Mush.”
It was many years before I understood
how the contest worked.
And for the last twenty years
since he’s been gone,
I carry on, buying puzzles, writing letters,
appointing unsuspecting winners.
Part of me thrills in this annual ruse
because it reminds me of him.
Part of me thrills in remembering
how strange and wonderful it felt
to be chosen not because of how hard
I had tried, but because I was part
of a circle of love. It’s a malnourished world,
he would write every year. Thank you, Papa,
for the Slush Mush.
Playing Family
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, game, growing up, mom on September 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »
for Grace
I’m too grown up now to play family,
says the six-year-old girl. But I hear
in her voice that part of her
still loves the game.
I long to tell her that now,
at fifty, playing family is still
one of my favorites.
I’m less wild about the version
where I’m the mom telling the kid
no, they can’t get the toy they want.
But I like the game when I sit on the couch
and say to my son or daughter,
Hey, come snuggle in, and they do.
I like it when we stand around the kitchen counter
laughing at whatever we’re laughing at.
I like when we’re driving in the car
and I say, Hey, sweetie, how was your day?
Sometimes, I play dress up in my own clothes
and wear what a mother would wear.
I even make breakfasts and lunches
and hide the M&Ms.
And I laugh to hear my own voice say
what a mother might say:
Clean up your room, please.
Time for bed now. Now.
You have got to be kidding me.
I love you. Oh my, how you’ve grown.
Family Woman
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged career, choice, dance, devotion, family, woman on July 23, 2020| 2 Comments »
Such awkward dance partners,
this longing to follow my own pursuits,
this longing to be ever available to you.
Both want to lead.
They step on each other’s feet.
One waltzes, though the other
has put on rock and roll.
One loves eye contact, the other
loves closed eyes to better feel the music.
And yet they whirl and two step every day,
taking turns swinging and dipping and bowing.
I used to think they were rivals.
Now I know neither wants to dance alone.
Even now, they’re pushing back the furniture,
rolling up the rug. There’s gonna be a real
fine hoedown tonight.
Riding Bikes with My Brother at Fifty
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, family, love, summer on June 26, 2020| 7 Comments »
We ride on the rusty old bikes
in the swelter of June,
legs pumping, waving at strangers,
the wind making a kite
of our laughter—
The eight-year-old version of me
would never believe
about how happy we are—
she’s still ratting her brother out
to the recess guard.
But here we are, like two
young kids, playing in summer—
sticky hands and suntanned arms,
the years an ocean,
our love a boat.
One Wild Ride
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family on June 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »
At the End of Les Miserables
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, family, love, musical, sister, theater on February 1, 2020| 1 Comment »
And again tonight, despite injustice and hatred,
Jean Valjean learns to love. And again tonight,
in the face of fear and prejudice, he finds kindness.
And again tonight, I weep as he nears his death.
I couldn’t say for whom I am weeping—for him,
for the girl he adopted, for the mother who died,
for the empty chairs, for the whole cast
who remind me too much of the world we live in.
For myself, of course, and my longing to do
what is right. But more than anything, I weep
with the memory of watching this very same scene
thirty years ago, sitting beside my brother,
both of us baptized in tears as Fontine and Eponine
sing behind Valjean, reminding him it is no small miracle
to love someone. I couldn’t have known then
how this would be the memory I’d return to again
and again when I think of my brother. There we are,
young and full of competing ideals, holding each other,
laughing through our crying, ready to meet the world
and each other tear-stained and open to news of grace.
That Almost January Evening When I Was Six
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cinderella, family, magic, new year's eve, parents, poem, poetry on January 29, 2019| 4 Comments »
We sat around the oval kitchen table
and made hats out of ribbons
and paper plates, and we piled them high
with golden grapes and fake flowers.
I remember thinking how great, how magic it was
that something we’d use for dinner
transformed into something so elegant.
Today I stared hard at a paper plate,
as if I could return to that state of delight
and easy grace. Was this how Cinderella felt
when she gazed at the pumpkin the day
after the ball? Wondering if the magic
happened at all? Weighing the shape
of reality against her dream?
Yes, I tell myself, it was real,
the glittering fruit, the beauty I felt,
the laughter around the table.
And it was a dream, the way my parents
made it seem as if we had it all.
And when the clock struck midnight,
none of the magic left at all.
Sitting Beside My Brother at the Funeral
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brother, death, family, grief, loss, poem, poetry, sister on June 1, 2018| 3 Comments »
There was a time when I’d pull his hair out
if he sat too close to me on the couch.
Now, I curl into his right side,
lean my head on his shoulder,
feel the trembling of his chest
as he weeps. How good it feels
to be close to him as we grieve.
How familiar, the shape of his head,
the heft of his hand as he reaches for mine.
How deeply right, this leaning
into sorrow together.
That Winter Evening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, family, father, fireman, hero, life, poem, poetry on February 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »
for Billy Miller, remembering events on January 4, 2012
When the man pulled my father
from the icy waters of Lake Michigan,
he did not know years later my step-daughter
would need someone to buy her a sweater
so she would feel nurtured, did not know
that my son would need someone
to make a mosaic with him so that he
could feel loved, did not know
that my daughter would need
someone to tell her that she
was beautiful. When the man
pulled my father out of the water—
my dad had been fishing alone—
that off-duty fireman couldn’t have known
that years later this very daughter
would sit beside her father and hold his hand
and weep at the simple gift
of being able to hold his hand.
The fireman was doing what he knew to do—
to rush to the person in need of help.
He didn’t think then of the other lives
blessed by the man. Did not think
of the other lives he blessed with his hands
when he chose to try, though the odds
of saving the man were low.
He knew only to reach.
Years later, my mother still sleeps
beside the man that was pulled
from the winter lake.
Give us hands that know to reach
for each other—stranger, neighbor,
friend. Give us hands that unthinkingly
choose to save the family
we’ve never met.