the morning breakdown:
poles, bags, pans, miracle trunk
pack our memories
quick stop for short hike
pass waterfall, aim higher
switchback to our view
it is a fine sight:
family of five, swollen legs
lake steals horizon
five showers, three loads
phone calls, dishes, and errands
aprés camp bed? YES!!
sunny day at end
after a stormy summer
last pool before school
hot springs aquifer
sulphur carved what man could not
nature’s history
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.
us five in a row
we have moved beyond the stars
together complete
before a long break
upon returning after
cheek-kissing culture
my cup is now full
once more i enjoy palm trees
their path leads to peace
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.
he tells me about the Muse
the one she spoke of
all those years back–
hippie of the nineties
she comes to me
just as he described
like a demon
moving my words into place
even on this small screen
just like the tiny notebooks
i used to carry place to place
she is as furious as ever
i spill my Stonehenge story
like blood dripping from my nose
that can’t be stopped without
a giant glass of water
my irking for a different take
on this simple life we’re all handed
can be summarized by that summer
when spoiled teens stole my Stonehenge
my muse comes in disguise
in lips belonging to me to her
and her words my words
are as genuine as at sixteen
he speaks of demons
we all carry them like shadows
in our back pockets
me? i let them out
flamenco infused
melancholic peace river
horse drawn romance muse
Step Write Up 