Making 12.12.2013

I was barely a teenager when my mom taught me to sew. It was intimidating at first, deciphering patterns and holding tender fingertips so close to the machine's stabbing needle. But in time it became second nature; I could practically thread a bobbin in my sleep. Now, I often choose to sew by hand, favoring the hypnotizing monotony of pulling each stitch taut.

My grandmother taught me to knit, but my aunt taught me to purl. That first winter, I read the whole Harry Potter series while knitting, propping the open books against a coffee mug and turning the pages only when I finished a row. By the time I started Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire I had finally moved beyond a simple garter stitch.

I learned how to cook while spending weekends in Grafton with my high school best friend. We'd choose elaborate dishes from cookbooks and bring them to life in the kitchen of her family's 100-year old farmhouse. Her mother taught me how to eat fresh artichokes; one by one we plucked the leaves and scraped the flesh away with our teeth.

Last week I made dinner with a friend who was visiting from Omaha. She scrubbed potatoes as I chopped onions and tossed them into a sizzling pan. To be honest, it was awkward and bumbling at the start. There was tension between us, a lingering trace of resentment, heartache, and distrust from a decade-old rift. “I've missed you, you know” she finally said, as she tucked the pan of potato wedges into the oven and gingerly shut the door. “God, I've missed you too,” I agreed, pulling her into a tight hug. In that moment, I realized we were making so much more than dinner; we were making amends.

Making: 12.09.2013

When there's a gun on the mantle contradicting the fireplace
in full view from the prone position
and the jailer is at your back
you make do
all the while plotting your escape

file to steel
file to steel
file to steel
file to steel

When you find yourself back in the cell
after a brief false freedom
(with no revolution knocking down the door
no furious mob with sticks and flames
not even a spare lone flare)
there is leery food on the table
and when the tyrant looks across and through you
sitting erect on his throne
you will lock yourself away willingly
just to suspend that stare

A lifetime can be spent unraveling a moment

A cage becomes comfort
safety in the closing walls
freedom malleable and dull

We can force to forget
until Time aids in the deletion of memory

But in the Night
the pillow cradles our dreams
steel crumbles like dust
whisked away in the slightest breeze
and there we fly
light and free

Making: 12.08.13

Making doesn't just take one.
No matter how hard one tries,
One must always look elsewhere for certain things.
Be it needs of certification from town authorities,
Or from dear friends giving us authenticating attention.

Don't try and do it alone.
Making while forsaking is explicitly isolating
From the community where you will make.

Really,
It's because making is sharing,
And sharing is from the true self.

You can try and do it all yourself,
But only if you want to share
What you make
With no one...EVER...at all!!!!!

Up: 12.06.2013

"Oh mannnn....I just bought that coffee....." The words slurred off his bubble gum lips and onto the floor following his extra large sugary caffeine beverage. This beverage spilled on to the counter, onto the cashier, onto lottery tickets, onto me and not on him.

 

He asked for a towel and started to wipe the counter. He saw me, I was next in line, he saw her, she was in line after me. She was an elderly lady. He saw us, he saw his empty cup and he saw the cashier's look of distain. He fled.

 

Next to the convenient store was the establishment from which he purchased his icy summer coffee.  I was pregnant, she was elderly and the other was working.   He walked out and us three were cleaning this adult child's mess. I was on my knees wiping the floor, she was wiping the counter and the other was wiping down the register and I watched this boy laughing though the glass door and I stood up.

 

I opened the door and said to him: "My children are six and 1 and a half and they clean up after themselves better than you. You have left a pregnant woman, an elderly woman and a woman who is working to clean up your mess. I'm not sure how you were brought up but I will not clean up after you nor will I let these other women do it. You come back in here and help."

 

The line of people and the staff at the coffee dispensary looked on with slack jaws and the man boy looked at me with shock and confusion.

 

Is this how we are raising our children these days? Is this how we are brought up? 

Up: 12.05.13

Autumn (continued)

11.

Okay, I'm up, I'm up;
rising
not quite singing

but I'm up
and everything feels different
although I'm not sure why
exactly

but it's different
uncomfortable perhaps
oppressive maybe
and the bed I just left sings a siren's song

beckoning 
welcoming
sheltering

and for a moment I...

but instead I turn away
and when I open the door
just to see

the wind bites my cheek
the thinnest blanket of icy cobweb snow is sparkling
the rooster is sleeping in
and I know the season has made it's crossing over
has snapped

and there is only forward motion now

but I'm up, I'm up
to greet it. 

Up: 12.03.2013

"Up!"

She reached her chubby, but tiny, arms as high as she could. It was one of her first words that everyone could understand and react to.

I bent down and happily obliged, snuggling my quickly growing baby. In a little over a year she had gone from tiny newborn to vocal baby. The months had slipped by at lightning speed.

"Up!!!"

She smiled a gummy smile. Words had power. Her words. Her power.

______________________________________________________

"Do you think it'll follow us home?"

Her eyes were fixed on the moon. She had recently discovered it and was completely fascinated.

"We are going home now, c'mon moon."

Nearly every night that we were out, she would have these little conversations. Coaxing the moon to follow along. Her two year old brain was trying to understand much much bigger things these days.

"Mommy, can you pick it up the moon for me?"

Her thoughts were growing so fast with her, I tried to keep up.

________________________________________________________

"Can you pick me up?"

She has been asking some form of that request nearly daily since gaining the ability to say words. I wrapped my arms around her and pretended to strain against her weight.

"I am getting so big, Mommy!!"

She was. Over 3 years old. Her body has grown, her mind has grown, her imagination and her temper. Everything is big these days. Big resistance and bigger dreams. Our days are filled with big. Small requests to wash hands or pick up toys become big. Big fights, big compromises, big sighs, big love. My little girl is big in so many ways. I relish the moments that she wants me to hold her. They are fleeting. If I blink too slowly, hesitate for a second, I may miss my chance. So, I grab it, I grab ahold of her and the moment. I squeeze her and cover her in kisses. I sneak in a head sniff. Then she wriggles free and leaves my lap for another big adventure.

My little girl is big in so many ways. She is growing. Up.

Up 12.2.13

Waking Early, Utila

On the island there are mornings

when the outline of laundry on the porch,

shadows of banana trees,

flare jet against a sky banked

with flaming coals.

The next time you open

your eyes, moments later,

it has gentled, rose gold.

Then steel and white silver,

and if you stare long enough

the ocean appears,

a line of blue iron.