parenting

Joy Among Us

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a flat starts the day
with a little pump, i ride
hills, mountains: progress

web site down, ends work
why not take the dry cleaning?
dead car battery

bored girls seek street friends
they’re at camp, then tutoring
where is their summer?

then, a text invite:
pool party, later denied
(for members only)

embarrassed, we leave
without the key to rich friends
our small house fills up

this after cold talk
screaming drive, snatching pillow
the girls unaware

of how i haiku
remnants of a hollow day
door shut, him sleeping

but before closed doors?
they street-danced on rollerblades
still making the best

i close itchy eyes
view the world through young faces
all i see is joy

The End

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sunny day at end
after a stormy summer
last pool before school

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Forecast

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in and out of the storm
we make our way back
rain splattering our shorts
and breaking free
moments later
into a burst of sunshine

she wants to watch
and i want to read
so together we share
a peaceful afternoon

then
a flurry of evening activity
picking up giggling sisters
heading out into traffic jams
shopping and dining
ending with curt requests
and bewildered hugs

on the drive home
droplets sprinkle the windshield
we talk about the hollow house
whose noise will burn their eardrums
on the other side of the city
and i think about her pursed lips
her tense request

and i wonder
if the storm will steal our silence

Covered

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because i have lost it
the reader within me
the writer within me
kept silent by society
as i walk carrying
dripping wet shitty diaper
across creaky floors
and dog barks waking baby
and 7-year-old tears up
because i threw away the tooth chip
that she spit out of her mouth
after she fell off broken branch
and my oldest begs to watch
while the dishes fill the sink
and the cousin dazes under allergy meds
and the person i used to be?

she is the road through the forest
captured on a Tennessee run
while we run from Tennessee
while i run from Tennessee
tree-covered tunnel
going nowhere

because i have lost it somewhere
along that empty road
covered, covered, covered in leaves
how they block the woman i could be
the mother i could be
the view into a new tomorrow
that’s just around the corner
that i can’t quite see

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Listening

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they’re all moved in
park hill home to make their own
while we still search
for the right place
to slip our toes into

i see them now
through my little-girl eyes
and those of my full-grown self
through hate and love
and all the broken hearts
between now and then

she will only see
the broken hearts

and that is why i stay
that is why she goes
that is why i hear the hollow voice
of my mother when she says over speaker,
i am finally home
that is why i hear it

Big Brother Wins

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It’s time to say goodbye. I tried editing. Removing posts. I started with the word drink as my post searcher.

Twenty-eight posts. (I might mention that I have 1,058 posts, the rest of which do not contain this word, but would it matter?)

During my search, I read about the beauty of my girls on a glorious Sunday. Of parties I’d had a great time at. Of weekend joy and love. Of coworkers having a moment of happiness after work.

And, gasp, about that awful thing that almost everyone I know does after work, but I’m not allowed to do since I’m a teacher.

This is one of the most frightening novels I’ve ever read. It bothered me so much when I read it, but even more now. I feel I share this room with Winston:

For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual position. Instead of being placed, as was normal, in the end wall, where it could command the whole room, it was in the longer wall, opposite the window. To one side of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was now sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably been intended to hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so far as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen. It was partly the unusual geography of the room that had suggested to him the thing that he was now about to do. (1.1.12)

I sit here now in my living room in Cartagena, Spain. I have spent the greater part of two weeks sharpening my résumé, rewriting my cover letter, and completing online applications so that I can bring my family home.

They are counting on me. Trusting me. Just as they did a year ago when I told them we were coming here.

I cannot let this writing, soul-fed, heartbreaking, ever-too-honest writing, keep me from providing for my family.

And so, just as Winston faced his biggest fear of rats, took his sip of ever-bitter gin and ended the novel with, “I love Big Brother,” I am going to have to concede.

Big Brother wins. I am taking down my blog. And with it, so many pieces of my heart that it will never beat quite the same again.

Cancellations

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Mythili is eight. She’s named after an amazing woman who speaks three languages with the fluency of a native speaker, two of which my Mythili will never know.

I came home a bit early tonight. My oldest, Isabella, named after my sister, walked the eight blocks necessary to meet me after tutoring so we could find her some semi-leather boots that match mine. Isabella is almost ten. She can just about fit into half of my clothes and has a much keener sense of fashion than me. I don’t know how I’d shop without her.

I was home early tonight because my life revolves around cancellations. Cancel the job I’ve loved and lived for for seven years. Cancel the program for which I sacrificed everything. Cancel my private English tutoring sessions on a weekly basis, because for you it is a bonus, a brief education. For me? Just another cancellation of my semi-automatic life.

Time is money. I say this now because cancellations can be golden.

These are the words I heard tonight, as Mythili voluntarily read books to her baby sister:

“Mama, did you realize the Statue of Liberty was built in 1826?” (Isabella)

(Mythili from other room): “1886, I read 1886!”

(Me, in same moment, recalling the specific childhood memory: 1986. Age eight. Trip planned to New York City for grand celebration of one hundredth anniversary [July 4, 1986] of said statue. Mother and father holding my hands in their hands to break to me: “We’re going to have to cancel this trip. Your surgery is scheduled for that week.”)

“Isabella, it was 1886.”

Riona, the Irish queen, as diplomatic as her regal name: “Mythili, where are those boats going?”

“They’re trying to get the best view of the statue. Remember this summer, at Jimmy’s house, we were on the mainland? But then we took the boat from one island to another to get the best view? Remember, Riona? They built the statue on an island.” (She refers to our summer trip, my cousin Jimmy’s house in New Jersey, the pain of my most recent Spanish cancellation so painfully present that the Staten Island free ferry was the only possible way to see Lady Liberty).

This is why we are here. In five years, they will read about the Romans. They will say, “Remember when we went to the Roman theatre in Cartagena?”

They will study Druids. “Remember when we visited Stonehenge?”

They will chew paella. “Remember the gambas?

They will be these small children, grown so grand, their life filled with cancellations. They will remember their parents’ hands on theirs, age eight. How they loved and hated Spain. How they cried, laughed, lived.

They will remember.

Reins

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i can write a ten-minute poem
fingertips touched
with years of hesitation

i am not accustomed
to holding these reins
lost in college years
i never took advantage of

i drive the carriage now
as we gallop across new lands
their realism lit up with logic
while at home we count coins

they know me well
how cautiously i shake these reins
like kings of the same root
our horses will fly us home

January (2013) Daughters

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Isabella

nose buried in Kindle,
a version different than our own,
the words like gold
still the same
as you excitedly spill
Harry’s latest endeavors

you climb like a monkey
over nets, up walls, on mountaintops
and keep small secrets
for fear of losing out

just shy of ten,
you stand past my shoulder now–
i’m afraid of double digits
as you’re buried in books
and beginning to abandon dolls

i suppose
we all must grow–
you in your wild, monkey-like way,
me, in my motherly view of your milestones

Mythili

the center of imaginary play,
instrumental in all
Monster High shenanigans,
the perfect voice-over
of coming of age

the center of language,
you pick up British accents
and repeat back
in perfect translation
all the Castellano words

the center of three girls,
just past eight,
your eyes light up our photos,
connect either sister like glue–
so much more than a middle child

Riona

with your ever-small defiance,
you fight for seats next to me,
won’t give in to open-minded eating,
and still suck your thumb

five months beyond
your six-year mark,
you patiently wait
for your closest friends
(sisters of course)
to guide you through the
maze of Spain

all these years later,
calm as can be,
your ever-small defiance
peaks in surprises,
the small gifts of perfect grades,
an ever-pleasant smile,
and our best example of
unequivocal love

Los Reyes Magos

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It was a year ago, at the Día de los Reyes fiesta, that I swallowed three glasses of wine, pulled out the plastic baby Jesus from the Roscón de Reyes cake, and made my announcement to ears who would never be ready to hear such a thing.

So tumbled down the following months of my life, steps leading to a new view of the world, first from their eyes, a new set implanted in my own silly head, and now from a small apartment in Spain, where I have pulled out, year two, the King of all Kings.

He stands godlike amidst the Catholic words, his luck ready to carry my family on my back into a new year of discovery.

Yes, I said it like that. How I carry them, how you know I do, yet despise me for it in the same downtrodden tone that is washed away by the admiring and adoring words of those who know me best.

This is MY king. There is no chance, even in the small circle for which this cake is cut in this year now passed, that anyone else was meant to carry it like a charm of fruition at the bottom of purse number four. It was in my reluctant-to-indulge piece, la crema spilling out the sides and pushing his beauty into my lips, wish and resolution now granted, for another year that I know will change my life.

You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to stand in front of duck-pond-soaked daughter for Life Moment Number 23 in Week Two of National Lampoon’s European Vacation, cousin in tow to witness it all, and not be able to say all that you need to say to the man who means more to you than anything fathomable in this or any life.

There was no Plaza de España. There was no beauty of a park unlike any other park. No romance amongst horse-drawn carriages. No tiles that could capture the intensity of my life upside down backwards and incomplete if for one moment he is angry with me.

The reason you can’t understand it is because you don’t have it. You don’t have him day to day, the most amazing human being placed upon this Earth. You couldn’t possibly understand the weight of his anger, so uncommon that the sky could fill with dark rainclouds in the same moment that you stare at the fishermen leisurely filling their nets in the sparkling sunlit river with color-coded stone houses mocking European beauty into your blood.

It was a year ago, at the Día de los Reyes fiesta, when that Fear of Losing Him broke me down to the core for the first time in fourteen years.

He is all mine now, standing like a perfect statue on top of Spanish words. He returned, peppermint bark, Spaniards, Heidetoes, and Spain, into my arms, into the warmth that I could only receive after our heated argument in that freezing cold Sevilla apartment. He is mine, this King of all Kings, and I will carry his luck on my back as we make our way into a new year, a new life like you’ve never imagined.

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