i’d like to believe
the morning moon would save us
from what it’s left us

somehow her hollow
will always be my hollow
and also my fault

my pen’s been quiet
as i mull over changes
like leaves that love gold

aspens let them go
to pave the path to riches
found in fall’s release

I never bought into this because I never had money to buy into it. Scratch that. I never had enough money to buy into this and think for one moment I was going to be one of those sports moms, that we were going to be one of those sports families whose entire lives revolve around kids’ sports, leaving no time or money for travel. 

I never bought into this because I often come home with over an hour of work to finish, three kids to drive around and feed, and a house to maintain. And after a pathetic failure of wrangling teenage minds all day and losing every last planning period (and lunch) to meetings. Going to a sporting event on a Thursday night, are you KIDDING ME?

But look how beautiful she is, all decked out, hair up, makeup on, ready to… sit on the sidelines… because I never bought into this, and fifteen is a little late to start a sport. 

I never bought into this because I am wholly unprepared, on a Tuesday morning, to read a ten-page-long email from her coach asking for parents to sign up for and prepare a huge potluck for judges and coaches for THIS THURSDAY’S meet. And for parents to buy items for and run a concession stand. And to bring in a giant vat of hot coffee, its creamers, its sugars, its… mess. And to bring in drinks and coolers full of ice for the athletes. And to provide snacks. And to help set up starting at noon and ending at three-thirty. And … to be respectful and responsible and commit to all of these things, the hospitality room–separate from the competition room–in particular, if our daughters aren’t competing. 

It stings in so many ways. One, because the majority of the girls on this team are surrounded by wealth and have stay-at-home mothers who could cook up a pot of homemade chili on a Thursday morning. Two, because why the FUCK does it take three and a half hours to set up a gymnastics meet, and would the boys ever have to set up their football field? Three, because I have no flexibility or time in my job (screw summers off), and school years run me ragged by mid-September. Four, because she fought me tooth and nail not to do this, and I made her do it, and she has learned to love it and is even willing to choose it over cheerleading, but she may just be a dressed-out cheerleader anyway, and I won’t even get to watch her friends compete.

Five: because it’s just another example, like her awful letter to me, of my failure as her parent. 

“Do you wish you’d stuck with gymnastics when you were little?”

“Yes. So much.”

Do you wish you were born into another family?

Yes. So much.

Do you wish you weren’t the oldest?

Yes. So much. 

Do you wish you had a different mother?

Yes. So much. 

I never bought into this because I wanted us to do things that we could all do together. Go on hikes. Go camping. Ride our bikes. Go to the park. Participate in Girl Scouts. Read books. Travel to all the states and two handfuls of countries. Have dinner in the same place, same time, with all five of us, every day. 

I never bought into this… and now I’m paying the bitter price of bowing down to a last-minute email, joining Costco on a Wednesday night so I can stock up on concessions, and running a hospitality room for people who would never be hospitable to me.

I never bought into this, and now I’m paying the bitter price of her resentment, her remorse, her eagerness to be anywhere but near me. 

I never bought into this because I didn’t think I could afford to pay the price. 

But now I’m paying anyway. 

the moment has come
for wordpress to work for poems
right when i need more lines

No trail-building or backpacking this weekend. Almost no mountains. Almost. 

But mountains are like breath to me. They take and bring oxygen to my lungs, pure as sunshine and blue skies over too-dry peaks. And if I can’t drive further, I’ll stay close and bring this beauty to students who’ve traveled the world to live here and never get to feel this rocky crunch under their shoes. 

“Have you ever been hiking before?” I ask a three-years-in Eritrean immigrant. 

“Here? No. But my home… my home in Eritrea, it was surrounded by this. And we had to take trails like this to go to the bathroom.”

It is such a simple statement from her full-haired, smooth-skinned, beautiful face that will always fill the picture frame of this day. So simple, yet so profound. 

On the drive home, we are all starving after our four-mile trek. The last two of my Nepali students (our numbers have frighteningly diminished since Trump’s election) suggest Subway and find a roundabout route on Google Maps to get us to one. But my Eritreans refuse to order a sandwich that their “rich” teacher is buying. They say they ate too many Pringles, but I know there is more to their story than what their English vocabulary will allow them to say.

The Nepalis order toasted bread filled with every vegetable Subway offers, no cheese, no meat, nothing against Hindus. The pale white young men hide behind their caps as the Nepalis point at vegetables, still not sure of their names, and though I try to recite, “cucumbers, tomatoes,” the boys’ pale eyes tell me that they’d rather not be here, surrounded by other skin tones in this bleached-white, English-only suburb. It is such a simple obscurity behind their black baseball caps, and yet so profound. 

I drive them halfway home because only these five girls out of ninety-three “participants” showed up today, and why shouldn’t I? It is a reminder of the two or three buses each of them takes, from every limb of our fully-branched city, to come to our school. It is a reminder of the commitment that comes from leaving a whole country, a whole world behind, to never get to see the mountains of my state. It is a reminder that on a Saturday afternoon, nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the accented, “Thank you, Miss.”

It is a reminder of the beauty of blue sky days. Of close mountains that fill my lungs with hope. Of not having to hike to find a bathroom. 

Of what this world could be, if we would just take a moment to breathe. 

in these late-night revelations
after the children have gone to bed
before the flames have filtered my words,
the gut-wrenching pain of every.
last.
sacrificial.
moment.

is as bright as an impromptu bonfire
on a Friday night
so far from the heart of darkness
that you’d squint your life trying to find.

and you’ll wear that superficial smile on your sleeve,
and bury in ashes the truth,
and wish to a god you don’t believe in
that the Sabbath would save you.

but there is no savior.
there is no Sabbath.
there is only the fire,
the Friday night lights,
the hope.

the hope hidden in darkness
with the caucaphony of sound
that penetrates every last heartbeat

my baby building
trails through aspen wilderness
makes weekend perfect

moose sighting again
just below this rainbow life
topped by a fire

hot springs soak soreness
sunset over raffle wins
weekend warriors

what i always dreamed
is in this tent, this weekend;
but with all of us

if i could be here
on this mountaintop puddle
when i die? i’d live.