Category Archives: Random

12 days to wedding: Distractible

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Less than two weeks to the wedding.

This blank sheet of paper is delicious.

I love to plunge into the page.

The thrill.

But,

I haven’t been doing it.

I’ve let these practices slide away:

The writing,

The nightly inventory.

I’m still doing yoga–

Too vain to let that go–

And I’ve been remembering to pray.

Even if it’s after I’ve stood up from bed,

Am cleaving my contacts onto my eyeballs,

And twinges of discontentment–

The weather,

The laundry,

The job–

Poke my gut.

Then I’m back to bed,

Kneel on the mattress,

Pull the duvet over my shoulders

And finally pray.

Even yoga is distracted.

I put my iPhone on my mat to

Read my Daily Reflection during

Sun salutations,

And I’m light and bouncy on the words.

They don’t take.

I’m making lists in my mind:

Linens.

Flowers.

Lighting.

Programs.

Today, though,

I’m up and writing.

Normal feels good.

One more normal week before

Wedding week starts.

I have a lot to do.

Hello, have we met before?: A night with my old journals

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I was paging through my old journals

The other night.

1987 (13 years old)

To the present.

A couple times I chuckled

A couple times I cringed:

The obsessions and

Vapid concerns of the

Teenage or early-20s

Me.

Declarations of love to

High school boyfriends;

Gut-twisting fears of

Friends turning on me.

And booze running through like a

Narrow, toxic river.

Who was that person?

That girl-woman

Flailing forward–

I did move forward despite the booze–

Functional, they call it.

I suppose I’m the same person,

Really.

Leaner and more

Focused.

Quieter in my neuroses,

Or more deliberate about sharing them

(Like starting a blog!)

Not quite as naive about

Love–

Although I still surprise myself.

And the booze river?

Dried up.

The river bed still cutting through,

Permanent and available;

A tender scar.

I love Minnesota early spring. Really.

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Everyday,

Soon after waking up,

I grab my iPhone to check the weather in St. Paul, Minn.

I have strong opinions about the numbers and symbols

That populate the app.

35 degrees this morning?

I like that,

But what’s with the smeary, translucent cloud?

That I don’t like.

Why can’t it be a

Marigold-colored sun

With a crest of white at the top of the little box to

Imply three dimensions?

I definitely don’t like tomorrow’s symbol:

Eight snowflakes in various shades of white and gray.

And 45 degrees.

(How so, snow and 45 degrees?)

And my least favorite symbol

For its ambiguity:

The weeping sun.

That’s today’s symbol.

Why do I care so much about the weather?

I work in an office

And I live in a house,

And any time I spend outdoors is deliberate:

“I’m going to spend some time outside,” I say,

Because it has to be intentional.

But I can get into a truly

Foul mood

Over an unseasonably cool forecast,

Especially in the Minnesota spring and summer,

When I feel entitled to

Warm weather

After the long winter.

I have this sense, though,

A hold-over from my childhood when I had

No opinion

On the weather,

I just wanted to go outside and

Play.

My sense is that,

If I get out in the weather,

No matter how crappy it is,

If I get outside and

Walk or run or lay out my mat and

Do some yoga,

I like all weather.

Yesterday, for example,

I tucked my yoga mat roll under my arm and

Walked to the park over my lunch hour.

It was sunny with a snappy spring breeze–

Too cold, I thought, irritated, as I walked to the park

And couldn’t find a perfect spot to lay down my mat.

But after moving through a yoga sequence

And lying in savasana

In the sun’s surprising warmth,

I thought,

This is perfect.

This air and this sun and this temperature:

It’s perfect just exactly as it is at this moment.

First time I’ve thought about Women’s History Month

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My churchmate: A historian living history

It’s Women’s History Month.

I’ve never given it much thought in years past,

Which is strange because I’m a

Woman

Who cares about

History.

In the media,

Provocative questions in order to promote a

High click-through rate:

“Is feminism necessary?”

“Are women losing ground?”

A few key statistics with

Supportive colloquialisms.

Lately, it’s my church where

I’ve been

Experiencing

Women.

It occurs to me that

Church

Is the one place in my life where I’m around

Women

Who are older than me.

My workplace is young,

My friends are

All around my age.

At church,

I like to sit a few pews behind a

Pair or

Small flock of older women.

I like to behold their

Hair.

Especially the women who

Let their hair grow long and

Prismatic:

Alabaster and ivory with

Ribbons of

Glinting silver,

And a few threads of ocher or coal.

I was at a

Women’s retreat recently with some of those women.

One of the workshops was a panel discussion with four women,

Each representing a

Decade of life from their

60s to their 90s.

The title of panel was something like

“Growing old gracefully in a

Culture that idolizes youth.”

The four women spoke in ascending order of age

In that elevated, cottony tone of an

Older woman’s voice.

The oldest woman —

98 years old, I believe —

Stood up to speak.

(The others remained seated.)

You know what they didn’t talk much about?

Husbands.

Children.

Grandchilden.

Careers.

You know what they did talk about?

Their own childhoods,

And their women friends,

Now.

It was as if they had

Finished with the

Vast expenditure of

Energy

In the middle part of their lives,

And they knew their jobs were largely done

There.

And what was left were the

Two bookends of their lives:

The treasured memories of the beginning,

And the treasured friends of the present.

From this

Woman

In the thick of

Kids/career/husband:

Point well taken.

Talking history in the present tense

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Servetus, from Wikipedia entry

I was at

Church

Recently,

Getting oriented.

Learning about the institution

(I used to scorn that word,

“Institution,”

But not anymore.)

We were sitting on a

Soft

Couch,

Joe’s arm around my shoulders.

He pushed his fingers into my hair

And swirled the hair follicles of my scalp

With the pads of his fingers as we listened to

The glossy tenor voice of the

Dreadlocked minister

Describe 500 years of

Unitarian history.

I had forgotten how academics talk history:

In the

Present

Tense.

“In the 16th century,

Michael Servetus

Studies the Bible …

Concludes …

Does not accept …

Is burned at the stake …”

And it was not just the theme of Servetus’

Nagging, then

Tormenting

Skepticism

That fascinated me.

It was the

Present

Tense

The minister used to describe him,

With its implication that

History is

Alive, is

Current.

And that in thinking and

Talking about these people and events

We keep open the possibility of repeating these experiences,

For good,

Or bad,

Or neither.

Touring the nursing home

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Photo: decorationideas.org

We went to see a

Nursing home for my mother.

Lyngblomsten.

Heather flower,

In Norwegian.

It had all the

Sad trappings

I would expect of a

Nursing home:

Metal hand rails attached to seemingly everything;

Laminate fake-wood signs warning against

Accidentally letting a resident out of the building;

And of course,

The residents themselves.

Men and women,

Shrunken,

Shaking,

With quaky, high voices,

And half a tennis ball stuck onto the bottom of each leg of their walkers.

But you know,

I can make a decision to

Shift my gaze.

I can look

Instead

At the aquarium,

With its bubbling, clean,

Cool-looking water,

Emerald seaweed swaying,

And impervious cyan- and canary-striped flounder

Turning calmly at the corners,

And eternally swimming

Back the

Other way.

There’s the aviary in the corner of the lounge

With warm, golden lights

Bathing the small,

Champagne sparrows with black speckles,

Their wings tiny, beating triangles, as they

Hop from perch to perch

And back

Again.

Or the bright eyes of

Some of

The residents as they

Turn their heads

And look at you

Sideways,

Sliding their walkers slowly down the sallow white tiled hallway.

Some of them will

Smile

In that way of

People

Who have learned that

Nothing’s truly more important than

A small smile

In a day.

Thaw Day

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photo: bikexprt.com

Yesterday,

I decided that

My small boy and I should

Emerge from our dusty house.

It was a February thaw,

Not to be missed.

Standing in the back hallway,

Underneath all the

Swishy, clompy gear,

My small boy was dismayed at the prospect of

Going outside.

“It’s cold out,” he pleaded,

His dad-shaped gray eyes bright between the

Woolen ear flaps of his stocking cap.

“You’re going to be surprised at how

Warm it is,” I said,

Literally pushing him

Out the door.

And so we ventured out into a

Sunny, drippy, melty day.

We drove to a small city lake —

Got the last spot in the parking lot —

And set off on a

Thaw Day walk,

Our gloves in our pockets,

Our rubber-soled boots withstanding the

Deep, cold, brackish puddles.

The questions the started coming at a regular clip:

“What are dogs made of?”

“Skin, bones, muscles, blood, organs.”

“What are organs?”

“What are organs …

It’s like your heart, your stomach, your brain.

Parts of your body that have a specific job to do.”

“We have organs?”

“Yep, we have all the same organs as dogs,

I think.”

“Is that dog cute?”

“I think so. What do you think?”

“I think so, too.

Why is that man singing?”

“He’s just happy to be outside.

He likes to sing.”

“He looks like Marvin [his school bus driver].”

“Yeah, he does look like Marvin.”

“But he’s not Marvin?”

“No, he’s not.”

And so on.

The small warm hand was

Tucked into my palm,

And I gave it a small squeeze

With my fingers.

“Remember this moment,”

I said to myself as I

Drew the warming thaw breeze

Into my lungs-organ.

Eating like an animal

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photo credit: contented.typepad.co.uk

When I think about

How I eat

And what I eat

And what I’m supposed to eat,

I think of this children’s book I read to my son.

It’s a story about a grandmother,

Living in the

Forest,

Who places baskets of

Food

Outside her door for the

Forest creatures.

In the straw baskets,

Lined with checkered cloth,

Are rosy apples,

Orange carrots with green tops,

Corncobs with the husk peeled down to the knob.

Bursting heads of grass-green lettuce,

Rolling cobalt and burgundy berries.

And to the

Deer and moose

And squirrels and raccoons,

All these vegetables and fruits are a

Feast.

No protein,

Carbs, or

Fat

In the form of bread, cheese, milk or meat.

Just fruit and vegetables for these animals.

After they eat,

The animals in the book are

Drowsy and sated.

Vegetables and fruit have been

More than enough.

It occurs to me

That I am

An animal.

That I have muscles and

Bones and

Blood and

Organs

Like those forest creatures.

I am more

The same

Than different.

So,

Why can’t I subsist on what these

Animals eat?

It must sound ridiculous.

Getting my nutritional information from an

Illustrated children’s book.

But I’m thinking about

Simplicity.

And requirement.

The experts say this,

And the experts say that.

I want to stop listening.

Who tells animals what to eat?

I want to eat like an animal

Because I am an animal.

Garlic soup in Prague

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Photo credit: visitingprague.org

“What is something you miss about

Living in Europe?”

Always,

My first reminiscence is

Food.

In Prague for the blustery month of January

I discovered garlic soup:

Russet beef broth with tiny chunks of garlic mince swirling around,

Warm, gooey strings of melted white cheese,

Small coral-colored squares of ham.

One guy in the class I was taking

Ate so much garlic soup,

That he exuded a

Garlicky reek through the pores of his skin,

And I swear that,

Like a skunk,

When he got excited or animated,

His body released a puff of the odor.

We all avoided sitting next to him in class,

And someone eventually had to speak to him.

Perhaps one of the instructors who had lived there for awhile.

Riding the coach away from Prague to my next destination,

I had packed up some groceries for the journey and,

Not knowing Czech well,

I had accidentally bought two large bottles of

Sparkling

Rather than

Still water.

(I love that phrase,

“Still water.”

It calls up calm, deep, cobalt pools in

Pine-forest clearings.

And “sparkling” is a lovely word, too.)

I forced myself to drink it for hydration–

The merits of which I doubted.

It tasted to this American like

Diet Coke without the flavor.

Now, finally,

Nearly a decade later,

I understand sparkling water.

It’s the

The post-pop,

Post-booze

Option.

The Europeans get it, of course.

“Sparkling or still?” they ask in restaurants.

“Sparkling,” I would say now.

With a lime squeeze.

Do real people feed each other popcorn?

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I was watching the

Superbowl last night,

And the camera panned a row of

Celebrity spectators

Rocking in black leather chairs.

A movie star and her pro baseball player boyfriend,

Their eyes ultramarine against their tawny skin,

Her hair an enviably expensive and perfect blond.

Just at the moment the camera panned to them,

She took a few kernels of popcorn in the tips of her long fingers

And fed them to the baseball player,

Who snapped at them like a puppy,

One kernel sticking to his bottom lip

And then falling into his lap.

Now,

Normally, I am sensible on the subject of

Celebrities.

I only have to imagine them

Taking a plunky shit

To bring them back down to

Planet Earth.

But this

Scene

Was so decidedly

Unstaged,

And so maddeningly

Charming,

It made me wonder if perhaps these

Celebrities

In their nonchalant vitality,

Aren’t truly

Über-humans,

Their concerns so far

Beyond what we

Regular folk deal with

That they would just

Do something

So spontaneously playful

In front of 111 million television viewers

Like feed each other

Popcorn.

I mean,

Who does that?