even if it’s small
even if it’s too chunky
it helped us get through
even if it’s spring
even if Corona wins
it helped us smile
let’s build a snowman
even if the snow is soft
we can make this work
Coronatine, Day Seven (Let’s Build a Snowman)
gratitude
Happy Angry Hour
Do you know why he makes me so angry? Do you know why I screamed at him (during passing period) in front of the entire class? Why I was still yelling after the last bell, spilling the whole story to my two unwilling-to-listen-but-forced-to daughters, cuss words and all?
Because I love him.
And I want him to think of me, of all of us, when he doesn’t clean the cat litter or mop the floor. When he pours all the creamer I just bought into one cup of coffee. When he changes his doctor’s appointment that I rearranged my entire day around and had my mother drive across town to bring him to, and doesn’t tell me until two minutes after class STARTS.
I want him to stop running the damn space heater all night long (with the door to his room open) and costing us $100 extra a month.
I want him to care about learning English.
I want him to be my son, to be like my daughters who absolutely drive me crazy in every way and refuse to do chores and forget to turn in work and to tell their boss they can’t work when we have a ski weekend and rearrange their weekends with friends when ski weekends get canceled and then whine about having missed most of the ski season without actually skiing… And get near-perfect grades and would never change a doctor’s appointment without asking me or checking the calendar first.
Alas, I have four teenagers in my house, and one of them is a boy whom I barely know and from a culture I barely understand and from a not-more-than-a-day-in-advance plan that I didn’t take into account when I asked him to move out of the homeless shelter and into my home.
Alas, that $100 a month on electricity matters to me right now because my husband just got laid off from his job and we have until May 21 to live like kings and the rest of our lives to figure out how we’re going to pay for our mortgage and our health insurance, and Bernie lost Super Tuesday and the stock market shot up 1,100 points the very next day because investors care more about health insurance profits than HUMAN LIVES.
Alas, just when things couldn’t be worse at work or anywhere else, the 1998 Camry died, and now I have another weight to carry each day: the shuffling of more teens to every last event from track practice that he (at the last minute) signed up for to musical rehearsal to never-ending-hours of fast-food employment to driving them to school each day.
Alas, I did not raise this boy to check calendars.
And I want him to listen to me. I want him to think about how each phone call and acting-up-in-class-joke and putting-his-head-down-shutdown is a punch into every last dark hollow of my teacher-mother soul.
But it is almost 5 o’clock. And I am going to walk seven blocks and sell tickets to my baby girl’s musical because, yes, I needed one of my tickets comp’ed so I can pay for the space heater and not spend another $12.
And I am going to smile and wear this shirt in front of all the racist white people at her school.
And that is my happy hour for today.
Small Victories
a color printer
may not seem such a prize
but it’s all i’ve got
Perfectly Cracked, Perfectly Hopeful
i walk my puppy,
fight weekend grocery store crowds,
and bake a cheesecake
before 10 a.m.,
i cook raspberry compote
and finish laundry
by noon, i’m ready
to begin this Sunday cleanse
and climb out of here
the city beckons
(no, no—the world beckons
for another chance)
our democracy
and the fate of our future
rest with how we vote
(even though it’s cracked,
my daughter’s birthday cheesecake
is one of many)
let this election
be one of many chances
to give us all hope
Pack Up the Car
a bluebird ski day
will forever be worth it
(Colorado love)
Instead of Bitching…
Tuesday win! I found this great recipe for one of my favorites, chicken marsala. That’s right, on a blah Tuesday night, I made chicken marsala!
Only instead of fettuccine, penne; instead of fresh thyme, dried thyme; instead of a purple shallot, a red onion; instead of heavy cream, evaporated milk; instead of chicken broth, vegetable broth; instead of mushrooms, artichoke hearts and cream of mushroom soup (40% less fat); and last but not least… instead of marsala wine, cooking wine mixed with Botabox Pinot Noir.
I know you’re jealous. It takes a really creative digger to be this good of a Tuesday night chef.
And instead of complaining, all the kids said they preferred this version instead of the original.
So instead of bitching, I’ll just enjoy these leftovers tomorrow.
Snowed Day
So Steamboat didn’t happen. They closed I-70 right after we bought chains, and closed 285 right when we’d gathered our courage to leave.
The roads are atrocious, the highways are closed, and it took so much planning and money and sub plans and my entire car packed for six people… And it’s heartbreaking.
And our Airbnb hostess tried to argue with me about going the Walden route and not refunding me.
Bitch, I’m a Taurus, and I WILL spend an hour on hold and send links to every damn CDOT warning ever made to get my money back.
So now I have a snowy weekend with this snow-loving Pomapoo, my money, and my family safe at home.
I love you snow, but you’re kind of killing me right now. Time to get out the Nordic skis.
Th-th-thank You
the mid-winter blues:
sometimes words stick in our teeth
unspittable pith
but i will teach them
the ‘t-h’ intricacies
of learning English
i will not give up
’cause they’ve crossed every border
to learn love’s language
I Just Have One Question
On the phone with the immigration lawyer four weeks ago: “I just have one question. What can we do at the school to get this boy out of a homeless shelter?”
“He needs someone to offer him a home and then we can begin the process of going through family court and applying for an SIJS visa.”
Five minutes later, calling my husband (which I NEVER do) in the middle of a school day:
Bruce: “What’s up?”
Me: “I just have one question.” Loooong pause.
Bruce: “Yeah…?”
Me: “Would you be willing to take this boy into our home?”
Bruce: “This boy who’s been in your class for three weeks and we know nothing about?”
Me: “… Yep.”
On the phone with the social worker, one day later:
Social worker: “Our ultimate goal is to place him with a Spanish-speaking family, although it doesn’t always work out that way. He told me that you might be willing to take him, and just so you know, I already Googled your house and everything I could find out about you. And I just have one question.”
Me: “Yes…?”
Social worker: “How do you feel about taking in a teenage boy when you have three teenage daughters living at home?”
(This was the easiest of these questions to answer).
In an email to the school psychologist, counselor, registrar, and social worker: “I just have one question. How does one take in a student in a situation like this?”
Response: “We don’t know.”
In my living room, three weeks later, meeting with the Uaccompanied Refugee Minor team of five adults–an interpreter, a bilingual social worker, a coordinator from Lutheran Family Services, a Guardian ad Litem lawyer, and a caseworker from the Department of Human Services. My puppy jumps from couch to couch, hovers on the floor with toys he begs them to throw, sniffs in their on-the-floor bags. Fabian holds the laser pointer and fiddles with the dog’s rampant scavenges for its source in the depths of the hardwood floor.
Social worker: “The primary goal of this program is to reunite you with your family. Let’s talk about all the family members you have in the U.S.”
So begins a lengthy discussion about every reason why his four family members cannot take him. One with a crime, one with a house too full, one in prison, and an uncle in Connecticut he doesn’t know.
Social worker: “Let’s talk about the uncle you don’t know. What if you went to visit?”
Fabian: “It’s too far.”
Social worker: “We could buy you a plane ticket. Pay for a hotel.”
Fabian: “…”
Social worker: “We don’t have to decide today. You can think about it. It’s always an option for your future. OK?”
Fabian: “OK.”
Fifteen minutes later, the meeting is coming to an end.
Social worker: “Now you both have the chance to ask any questions that you have.”
My quiet son, with red eyes and pulling his hands away from his downturned face, looks up and says, “Solo tengo una pregunta.”
We wait for the interpreter to repeat his words.
Fabian: “I just want to know how many times you are going to keep asking me to reunite with my family. Because I was in a homeless shelter for four months and no one in my family did anything for me, and I don’t want to reunite with them.”
Every mouth in the room: Silence.
I just have one question: What would you do?
Knowing that his journey across four borders and a lifetime of woes has ever-gratefully placed him in your living room. Knowing that you will lose sleep over this, waking in the middle of the night to police sirens thinking that ICE is coming, worrying that he will hate you, that he’ll turn back and re-cross those borders, that he won’t fit into your family. Knowing that when he sits in your classroom with all the others, they might make somewhat-joking, somewhat-bitter commentary about “your son.” Knowing that your daughters will get jealous over him being allowed to watch a movie on a weeknight or having a specially-made dinner and a piñata for his birthday. Knowing that people in your life are going to question every aspect of this choice (“College is coming up… can you afford this?” “Are you sure he’s not a criminal?” “Are you worried about having him in a house with three teenage daughters?”).
Knowing that for every day of your life, from the moment when he raised his face and asked his singular question, you will never forget its weight on your soul, on your humanity.
I just have one answer: love. It is the only response that is worth listening to out of every possibility. It is the only way to get through each of the borders that we must cross, each of the dark memories that plague us all, each of the questions we have always asked about what we could do.
We could love each other just a bit more.
Day 24
my son shares his home
with diagonal slices
of sweet plátanos
Step Write Up 