life and write

That rainy day, they marched, looked for your footsteps, your blurred shadow, shining in what was left of the storm. Everyday they watch, listen, place their tiny footprints in the weight of your every step.

Happy Father’s Day…

This post is not solely about the resistance movement erupting in Turkey right now. This is also about how we are connected as humans and how the world seems so small through solidarity and friendship.

As I walked the streets in my Midwest neighborhood this past weekend, I passed the Turkish gift shop midtown. In that moment as I have so many times before, I thought of my dear Turkish friend in images and words, how we have shopped there together, hot tea in our hands, wading through art, scarves, jewelry, wind song from her native tongue.

facebook.com

Sounding a Resistance
As I continued to pass the shop, doors open wide to the breeze, that memory quietly interrupted by a line of perched bodies along the brick façade. I did not know their cause for standing so patient and so still, but bowed my head in peace, nodded in support of their seemingly singular voice, buried between brightly colored signs, arms clutched together like chain link. Later that day I heard, read the disjointed narratives seeping from Turkey. A few days later, I heard from my friend…

dispatch.com

Today I write…
There is no time but the present to stand inside the green, lie down in sprinkling blades, beside stiff shadows covered in leaves, beside your neighbor hand in hand, beside the earth. Stand because fresh air changes shape when harnessed between hardened buildings and fume filled parking lots. Stand to cherish open natural spaces as divine moments beyond a busy day, a busy week, a busy world. Stand because like those blades of grass, those trees, voices do not sit, they only speak in peace and stand in resistance.

For more information about what’s going on:

Images, writings, video

Photos from the Resistance via IMGUR.com (images)
The First Week in Resistance in Istanbul (video)
BBC News (timeline and map included)
Washington Post (blog)
New Yorker (blog)
Open Democracy

I could sit out here all day; think about how high the sun sits in this open sky. Summer does not shine this bright, humidity this dry, up north. The trees do not dance as freely; the grass does not pull to the sky with such reach and stretch. Even in wilt, the petals rich with pigment, cranberry, marigold, ginger. My boys are happy to be outdoors sitting, running, laughing, swinging their arms and legs in the warm day.

I could sit out here and write morning or night, listen for the breeze brush against each blade of grass, each sun stained petal, each full green leaf. I could read against the pink and orange sunset, turn each page as the sky darkens, wonder why the sunsets in the north do not meet the moon with such rouge.

Today I am thankful for this tiny oasis, these rows of green, these full blooms and dangling branches, a bountiful space outside of a busy week, a moment of quiet and ease.

Memorial Day is an echo, a thank you, a handshake, or a hug for those we know who do serve and carry on the important work and memory of those fallen. Featured here, a Google Doodle by Sabrina Brady.

Thank you to my husband Major Alfonso Edwards Jr. and to all of our brave men and women who serve and have served.

Just before he rose, before his bright eyes opened, I sat on the floor beside his crib, watched him sleep, dream in dull daylight and cool draft along the bare floorboards. I thought about motherhood about how time is a fine grain, like loose sand sliding through fingertips. His fingers still plump, soft skin wrapped around the vertical white slats of his crib. His sleepy reach just beyond his animal print sheets, balled up in nap, dreaming of lovely nonsense.

There are some days when love shows up at your front door with open arms.There are days where conversations have less miles between each word. My husband and I, like children, soaked up love sitting across the table from my parents, our parents. Our three boys were swirls of joy, in and out of arms and smiles. Time passed as early morning spilled into dusk, the darkening skies wrapped with a few tears and goodbyes.

When you are away, we do not sit in your seat at the table. It is yours, and we honor it. Leave it as you left it pushed in or out, a piece of your clothing draped across the back of the chair, a dusting of crumbs near the cold center groove where you last sat and ate warm penne, garlic bread, a salad. In that chair, your thin legs dangling, you are somewhere between cherry and blonde wood, between disparate emotional spaces, between places you call home.

Underneath golden streams and inside cool breeze, weekends were made for finding shadows and standing still.

There might be magic in children’s books as they have a way to settle down wiggly awkward boy bodies, commanding stares and stillness. Even the busiest little people find time to take in words, images, and meaning. I love how without prompting my eight year old will read to his three year old brother. There is literacy between them, huddled on the bed together, leaning over a book, my eight year old acting out the character voices with such fervor. For a few minutes there are no arguments, no rolling around on the floor, no jumping on the bed. There is only two brothers, finding their way word by word, sentence by sentence, together.

While typing on my laptop, my three year old asked, “What are you doing mom?”

“I’m writing.”

“That’s not writing,” he said, motioning his hand as if writing with a pencil on paper.”

“It’s not? Then what is it?” I said.

Thinking hard about his response, he said, “You’re doing letters.”

“Oh,” I said pausing. “Well then can I ‘do’ some more letters?”

“Yes.”

“Well thank you.”

Extreme clarity is a mystery. -Mahmoud Darwish

Spring in Ohio, partly sunny, gray skies, cool wind. Poetry.

—James Schuyler, excerpt from Hymn to Life

While they sleep, I’ll write. Shhh…

Every now and then our Saturday is less scheduled, relatively uneventful, and just us. Three is company, and five is a lovely crowd. I’ll take my Saturday with a side of family.

Added to my series on creative play, I thought I might include a poem pairing. The kids are still “not playing with their toys”, but I find they are still inspiring me to write about their creative adventures with everyday “stuff”.

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There is a poem in play. A child
on bended knees, ringing metal chimes
in the sunlight, atop honey-colored wood
scraped with steel and laughter. Circles scattered
on the floor, those silver eyes like spinning tops.

The forecast calls for 5-7 inches of snow, and we’re making preparations for the day, and for the next few days. With inclement weather on the horizon, what is a writer to do? Stay in where it’s warm, write, and revise of course. Hope your Sunday isn’t as snow covered, but if it is, please stay safe and warm.

Handwriting Thank You (link)

A Split Second Decision (link)

Fatherhood, a Snapshot (link)

We go through love (link)

Saturday mornings were made for siblings sharing laughs, a yellow plush giraffe and a red caterpillar, for lying around in orange pajamas, and taking in the gray day.

With so much recent public discussion about the politics of parenting in this macro, policy shifting sense, I’ve been thinking a lot about the dozens of micro choices we make as parents every day. Every moment seems to be a shifting, a debate within ourselves as to how to parent, and what we do about time.

The other morning as I gathered my things, a bag on each arm, my wedges (and my flats), a snack for my commute, my three year old, with his pleading brown eyes looked to me and said, “I want to go with you.” It was in that split second that I had to think, to possibly craft a response, a clever one, a concise one (as I was already a bit behind schedule). I thought to myself, I needed to let him down easy, counter his request with a promise to pick him up from school or take him to school the next day. But in that split second, or maybe many more seconds later, I realized where I was headed (work) was fixed. My job (though I had a big program going on that day) wasn’t going anywhere, it would be there when I got there, even if I got into the office just a few minutes later than I had planned. I would still be early and prepared, the work would still get done, and the program would still go on.

But back in the living room with my three year old, I considered there might not be another ask if in this very moment I said, “no.” My husband questioned whether or not I had time to take him to school, but I thought to myself, “I could make time.” It was such a simple request. He wasn’t asking for anything unreasonable, it wasn’t a major crisis, it was an ask for more time. Time, the thing we all seem to grapple with; and as a parent, the thing that seems to elude me every single day.  In that very moment my son just needed more time with me, and as I rounded out all of the reasons (or maybe excuses) for why I could have said, “not today,” or “maybe later,” I simply said, “o.k.”. He put on his socks, his shoes, and his coat; then grabbed my hand, looked up and smiled. “I’m going with mommy,” he announced. In that very moment nothing else mattered but his hand in mine, walking out the door to school, to work, together.

“Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.”—James Thurber

Love is an ongoing conversation, like spring, a perennial stance. We go through love. We move through it, like daylight rippling across the surface of water, like splitting wood opening one fine splinter at a time. We stumble through love with ourselves, with someone else, as graceful as roots lengthening beneath winter soil, stretching beyond the soft ground, blooming still.

photo credit: morguefile

After nearly 12 years, she still sends me lovely notes on paper. The kind of note I keep, stash with the other years of notes, memories, signatures, change of addresses, friendship.

In a time of electronic cards, emails, text message, and many things digital messaging, I suppose I’m still a fan of the occasional handwritten note, letter, card. In a conversation earlier this year with high school seniors, many of them also expressed their love for the handwritten, for pictures, notes, letters they can hold in their hand, smell, savor, read over and over again. They admitted to keeping “pen pals” and returning to writing letters and notes to send greetings and pictures just to have a different communication experience. These students surprised and inspired me as they expressed an appreciation for moments that are “low tech”, and “high touch”, less about instant, anonymous, casual communication, but more about deliberate, thoughtful, human-centered rituals in communication and writing. These students were looking for a balance.

Of course there are creatively endless ways to communicate using our technologies and devices, but there is something multi-sensory about the experience of writing a letter, a note, and then mailing it. It seems that same multi-sensory experience is ignited when mail arrives and it’s not a catalogue or a utility bill, but a handwritten note from a loved one or a friend, a note that traveled a long or short distance, with its own narrative of how it arrived.

What do you think? Do you occasionally hand write letters, notes, or cards, send them by mail, or slip them in the hand of a loved one or friend? Do you still receive handwritten notes?

That sleepy baby lying across his father’s lap is a soft pod, warm in elbow bend. His tiny fingers barely curl around his father’s worn knuckles, cup his stubble chin, press thumb against kiss.

There are men that father, breathe in deliberate moments of time with the child or children in their lives. Sign a wisdom with deep voices, burly echoes as acts of love and parenting, raise that child, those children with their hands and their hearts.

After a bit of reading, re-reading, writing, I offer up words and wonder from the past week. I hope your Sunday is unfolding beautifully. Enjoy.

When it comes to you (link)

photo credit: morguefile

Good morning Chicago (link)

Waiting (link)

Orange and Blue (link)

In Love (link)

To be in love is to touch with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well.—Gwendolyn Brooks

photo credit: Kim Webb

To be in love is to clasp a hand, to hold tightly, feel the grip dimple your skin, warm the inner most cusp of your hand, that dark middle, crossed with etchings, marked and worn. To be in love is to open that cusp, the soft round of your hand, to someone else, and hold on. ―dce

photo credit: morguefile

“Love is a blue balloon that wants to be orange.” ― Jarod Kintz  

Love’s tongue is on fire. One foot
out the bedroom door, one ear pressed
against sharp words lost in fault, in strike,
confused by the clutter of crisp interruptions,
awkward run-on sentences, clashing blue.

―dce

When you are away your younger brother leaves space for you to play beside him on the rug, he saves you a toy, even if when you are here he doesn’t always like to share. He calls your name as if you will walk through the door or down the stairs to be with him. He hears us try to explain the swaying shifts of our family, the days you are away. He twists his face in confusion as we try to give him words for where you are in exchange for that empty space next to him on the sofa, at the table, in the room you both share. He still stands in the window looking for you, waiting. And I understand that wait because I’ve now taken up standing beside him.