“Mom, what’s the title of this song,”
she asks me. I listen to the lyrics
for cues. Luckily, Taylor Swift starts to croon
in her mezzo voice, part velvet, part thorn,
“You’re on Your Own Kid.” And I shout
out the title. Vivian smirks,
knowing I was rescued by the song.
“Album?” she says. “Red?” I guess.
“Wrong,” she says. “Evermore?”
I guess. “Wrong.” “Midnights?” “Yes.”
She nods in mock exasperation
it took me so long.
She loves it when I get it wrong
in her endless quiz of popular songs.
She loves that she can teach me.
I love it, too, that she shares with me
these lyrics that grow her, shape her.
We walk along the river trail,
one white air pod in her ear,
one white air pod in mine
and the river braids by and the next song
begins to play. “Title?” she asks,
and I listen for clues until Taylor
demands in a gravelly rush
“Are You Ready for It?” And I look
at my daughter, just fifteen
and becoming so wholly herself.
As much as I want to stop
in this moment with her hand brushing mine
and the musky scent of river
and sunshine warm on our skin
and I think yeah, I’m ready for it,
though it brings me to tears, yes I am.
Posts Tagged ‘play’
Ready for It
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, music, play, Taylor Swift, walking on May 1, 2024| 1 Comment »
Tobogganing with My Teenage Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, play, slow, snow, speed, time, winter on February 24, 2023| 7 Comments »
Perhaps I wish for something dangerous—
a rush, a breakneck ride, a snow-drunk risk.
Instead, my daughter and I slide the toboggan
down the drive with a languid, slow-motion
sluggishness. And we laugh as we urge
the wooden sled forward, creeping
down the hill. After a few laps, the run
is fast enough we can build a small jump
at the bottom, but it’s more of a bump
than a launch. What is it in the heart
that loves a surge, a swell of excitement,
a dance with danger? Why is it fun
to be out of control when the stakes are low?
Oh, my girl and I know, we know what it’s like
when the stakes are high. No wonder
we laugh as we slide at the pace of a stroll.
We know what it’s like to be out of control.
We know. I hold her by the waist as we barely move.
And part of me longs for speed. And part of me
is grateful to move in a way that lets me hold her
a little bit, even just a few seconds, longer.
Once Upon a Night
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, daughter, mother, play on November 17, 2022| 7 Comments »
In the living room after dinner, my daughter
plays Tchaikovsky on Alexa
and dances every character in Sleeping Beauty—
Aurora, the prince, the evil fairy,
the lilac fairy, the bluebird, the jewels—
she leaps and lifts, she jumps
and twirls and raises her arms
with a delicate twist of each wrist.
She is more wing than limb,
more song than blood,
more frolic than bone.
To watch her is holy business
as she learns to make each step beautiful.
The Autumn Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, hawk, play, wings on September 23, 2022| 6 Comments »
Perhaps a red-tailed hawk
calls to you through closed windows,
and curious, you leave your work
and step out into the morning.
The air smells of rain and autumn leaves,
and the hawk makes wide circles above the yard
as if showing you how it’s done—
this is how you play with the day.
Everything glitters as the sun emerges.
Everything, even your thoughts.
Even your greatest loss.
The hawk disappears up canyon.
You breathe as if you’ve just remembered how.
When you go back in, you’re careful to fold in your wings.
Relearning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged play, proverb, relearning on June 3, 2022| 8 Comments »
When the going gets tough, it’s just started.
A bite’s always worse than a bark.
It’s darkest before it gets darker,
Absence makes the heart.
Speak softly and carry a life rope.
Out of sight, in the prayers.
Good things come to those who love.
All that glitters is meant to be shared.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way to be tested.
Get a taste of your own disaster.
The squeaky wheel is also a song.
Loss is the art of being mastered.
No Way to Anchor
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, play, time on May 11, 2022| 6 Comments »
While our bodies curl
into each other on the couch,
Vivian grabs my resting hand
and begins to smack it
into my chin.
Why are you hitting yourself?
she asks as my limp hand
repeatedly hits my jaw.
Why are you hitting yourself?
And we’re laughing and
I squirm and squeak
and she grins as she keeps up
her one-line interrogation.
I want to hold this giggling moment,
want to linger here
where the truth
that we hurt ourselves
becomes play,
where the trust
that we will do our best
to not hurt each other
runs deep, deep as the current
that drags this moment
with it through time,
even as I squeal Stop,
knowing how it goes on.
Unlikely Inspiration
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged algae, play, thrive on February 5, 2022| 3 Comments »
We used to play with the scum
in the river’s slack water for hours—
sat there with our sticks pulling up
thick green layers from the water,
flinging it against the rocks where it stuck.
A simple game, perfect for a four-year-old boy
and his mother. Scoop and thwack,
scoop and thwack. Joy in the act.
Not once did I consider
the resilience of algae. How it floats free.
Not once did I admire how, despite its lack
of roots or stems or leaves, it still harvests sunlight,
still brings green and oxygen to the world.
Now, feeling rootless, feeling stemless, feeling bare,
I think of that algae, how it thrives.
Walking Past the Mud Puddle
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dirt, friendship, lotus, mud, play on February 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »
for Michelle
Today I feel too clean to play,
but oh there was that day
when you and I
walked past the mud puddle,
all slick and ooze, a miresome mess,
and we reached our fingers into the sludge
and smeared the muck
onto each other’s faces—
thick mud, gray mud, slippery
and unctuous mud,
wide swaths of heavy mud
that slashed our cheeks,
bedecked our foreheads, mocked
our love of spotlessness.
Not war paint, but joy paint,
cool liquid earth on our skin.
Besmudged and besmirched,
we baptized each other
in the dirtiest of water,
a murky blessing,
our laughter blossoming
between us in the air,
a many-petalled prayer,
a jubilant lotus
startlingly (how?) so pure.
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.
Building the Snow People
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged home, play, snowmen on November 27, 2020| 4 Comments »
We rolled them out of backyard snow.
How quickly snow balls the size of a heart
become snow boulders the size of a man.
We gave them features
to make them more like us.
Dark brown stems and leaves of dried mint?
Those became hair. Carrots for noses,
of course. Small gray rocks for eyes.
Plus knobby sticks. Rust-colored leaves.
Thin icicles from the eaves.
The wail of a siren going by—
that went into them, too.
Plus a prayer for those in pain.
And a slip of blue Colorado sky.
We walked among them,
these rare guests in a time of quarantine,
and perhaps we felt our loneliness lift.
What is a snow man but a temporary cairn,
a dolled up trail marker that leads us
back to ourselves, back to our own backyard.