thinking of loved ones this morning

on the mornings she awakens filled

and certain that her wanting bones cannot lift her up

she takes a moment

and flits in her mind to loves

and sings to the black blued sky

and steadies herself as the sun rises

and so she is become

a small bird in verdant scaffolding

i watch her soar:  it's shattering

campagnie marie chouinard

look: it will send you living.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwCoSxi9TJU&feature=channel

for the brave and the bold and the seekers of that space between nectar and decay, i give my thanks every day.

(and, for friends like rupert who pass links like this on, because we have one heart between us in some ways,  i am also alive)

this, and things like it, make my heart beat again.

i'm trying to talk to you/or: why saturday night cocktail party chatter is difficult for the stay-home mama

THE SCENE:  saturday late afternoon.  the three small children are not at school.  they are at home:  demanding: food and drink, help in the bathroom, help busting up their fights, help getting to pbskids.org, help finding socks, help finding something to do; laughing like maniacs and then screaming at each other; dancing to alvin and the chipmunks, lady gaga and queen, all at full volume; running inside and out; skateboarding on sidewalks; stepping on legos and screaming; accidentally kicking each other in their stomachs; kissing each other wetly; refusing to practice their instruments; playing ball in the house and breaking vases; and speaking in their loudest, bossiest voices in order to exercise control over the others.  HUSBAND/FATHER is at home today, too, but is going jogging or checking his e-mail, fighting with the children over practicing their instruments, asking what the lunch plan is, practicing his photography technique or going to the office real quick for a cord he forgot there, frequently and throughout the day.  it is so loud and messy in the house WIFE/MOTHER believes her skeleton has shattered and the slivers are poking through her skin from the inside.  she knows this too shall pass but that doesn't help because that is about thirteen years out and then she will probably be grieving the silence but right now:  the splinters are poking.  it hurts and yoga for relaxation is out of the question because she can't get down with that chi finding stuff and anyway please:  if she got down and did the upside down dog thing in her living room they'd all find her and jump on her screaming with laughter and that would be that; a studio or gym is ridiculous because when?  and though her family is rich in noise they don't have a lot of spare coins jingling in their right-side-up pockets; and if she went outside into the garden for some quiet come on man, they follow her everywhere.  she knows it's all good, it's all because they love each other and the noise is shrill happiness but her bones are poking through and there seems nothing for it and since no one seems to notice it's all good.

CHORUS:

it is so loud around here

she thinks her skeleton has shattered and

slivers are poking through

this too shall pass doesn't help

she will regret the silence then

right now:  poking poking.

yoga is out for reasons she doesn't have time to list, anyway please:

it is all fine.  her bones are poking through but

no one seems to notice so

it's all good.

----------------

WIFE/MOTHER to HUSBAND/FATHER:

sometimes it is so loud around here

that for my sanity i fear

slivers are poking through my skin

jabbing the painful knowledge in:

i do not appreciate the noise

and soon they will be gone

and i can rise at dawn

and do the upside down dog (even though i hate yoga)

in my living room or wherever i want and no one will knock me over laughing hysterically.

am i crazy?  i feel a little coo-koo

and you know i know it too-too

it's all about the love

but i cannot rise above

The Bones.  Poking.  Through.  My.  Skin.

___________________________

HUSBAND/FATHER to WIFE/MOTHER:

roses are red

violets are blue

the kids are loud

but we don't live in a shoe.  it could be worse.

-----------------------------------------

NARRATOR:

there once was a mom from nantucket

whose kids were so loud she said fuck it

she got in the car

and drove long and far

til she missed the noise of nantucket.

then she came home again.

*****************

i was at a cocktail party last spring.  i was the only stay-home mom there in a big crowd of attorneys, and analysts, and economists.  there was this one german economist guy there who was a guest at maryland from paris, for the semester, and we were having fun talking, and then his american wife came up and joined us.  you know her--young, leaving him because she couldn't stand the scene in paris and needed to get back to the usa and nothing would hold her back from what she wanted--not even love--currently working as an aide for a senator.  perky, well traveled, smart.  she asked me, as everyone american does (i have found that european people tend to be able to discuss stuff, rather than jobs), what i do.  i answered that i stay home with the kids.  she said:

that must be fascinating.

i snorted.

she blushed and said:  what, you don't like it?

i said: of course i like it.  but it is not fascinating. 

she left to get a drink.

******

it was a conversation i didn't like.   to focus on whether i was rude or not is to miss the point, though i'm not sure what the point is.  is it that motherhood is sacrifice and to imply it is fascinating denigrates the grand sweeping gesture?  or that after a day like that day, no one would have any brain cells left?  that giving up what you love for something else you love is sometimes really amazing?  any suggestions?

Spring Gardening

you smiled just now at the soil

and i felt a cherry tomato burst

on my tongue

(is there juice dripping from my chin)

blistering hands achy knees

bees landing in the flower you folded

in my hair

there was no tomato.  but

may i kiss your eyelids over again

with fraught lips

(that will not stain with their wanting)

past the frost bitten season

and digging now for brightness, worms squiggle

through our hands

summer will come and we must wait

to see what will grow between us

plan b or: how to cope with knowing you will be shattered sometimes

Ode

WE are the music-makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties

We build up the world's great cities,

And out of a fabulous story

We fashion an empire's glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song's measure

Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself with our mirth;

And o'erthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world's worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth.

---Arthur O'Shaughnessy. 1844–1881

try to imagine which agony or elation o'shaughnessy was tempering with these words:  for me it stays gray.  though human agonies and elations are common and stock, and few--they are yet so unforgivably, minutely, specific that often we dream in scarlet of being understood.   

is this a summons to remember: the out-the-windowation of a dream will slap you to your knees, and you will become again fully vertical?  and:  standing again says more than the dream?  and: of the dreams that come true, they aren't always lovely, or permanent.  so:  dream new.

of course, my interpretation is mine and only for today: tomorrow this will have died, and something else come to be.