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…

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.

Soft black flap
gold crossed buckle
glow flicker and still

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.

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.

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.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

-Pablo Neruda

image: morguefile

We quarrel in beautiful couplets, sit
beside each other touching our fears
against our tongues. There was a time,
not long ago, we reasoned in a hush,
held our breaths for days, impassioned
collision, let the silence fall
from our mouths as careless flicker.

To find our stride, our turning over,
we learned to listen without wither,
every crevice, every breath, every kind
kind word between us, an opus.

photo credit: morguefile

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)

photo credit: morguefile

When it comes to you, I am a warm and gentle glow.

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.

My eight-year-old rose very early this morning got dressed and through his entire morning routine to join me downstairs during my writing time. First thing he did was turn on all the lights (sometimes I write in the dark), and started talking non-stop about everything—why he likes his new Star Wars book, all the new dance moves he’s been doing, why when milk spoils, its property changes, and how he wants to eat a big bowl of cereal so he can save the last English muffin for someone else (how thoughtful).

Though my son was technically interrupting my writing time with his colorful spurts of chatter, I kind of liked that he wanted to “hang out” with me this morning, so I put my computer away to sit and focus on him. Later, after tons of topics and that big bowl of cereal, I asked him why he was up so early and he replied, “I’m excited to go to school.” (Ok, I’ll take that). Even later after he settled into a book, I got back to writing.

My writing space and time are sacred, but this morning, it was easy to choose a bit of time with my son over writing. Sometimes it’s more meaningful to spend that space, that time with kids when they need it. Besides, those words in my head aren’t going anywhere (I hope). What do you do when life interrupts your writing? What/who do you sometimes choose over writing?

The library is a regular outing for my eight-year-old and I. Yesterday, while I glanced at titles, slipped off my shoes after a long day on my feet, and stood while skimming inside front jackets and back covers for summaries and reviews, my son followed me around the tables and shelves patiently exploring titles and asking questions.

As usual, I picked a bit of nonfiction, a heavy work on the complexities of our prison and judicial systems by Michelle Alexander, coupled with a douse of culture and feminism in a collection of essays by Patricia Hill Collins, the thick paperback conspicuous among the featured titles on the Women’s History Month table.

“Is there a Man’s History Month mom?” my son asked. But before I could answer, he proceeded to explain that he remembered in school he learned [a long time ago] women weren’t treated equal, and that’s why this month was important. I commended him on his youthful insight, and went further to explain to him that even today, women aren’t always treated equal, but Women’s History Month is not only a reminder of balance and equality, but also a celebration of women in general. “Are you a part of that celebration?” he asked.

What women to do you celebrate today, everyday?

What do we tend to do, what feels right or what feels good?

There are some things worth fighting for, worth all the might his 8-month-old, chubby little fingers can muster. There are some things so interesting, colorful, just beyond reach that only one’s persistent drive can wield the strength, the determination to not give up.

There was this flag on papa’s shoulder. Not just any ordinary flag, a flag with stars, stripes, red, blue, and white, braided seamlessly, seemingly stitched tight on his sleeve. But my 8-month-old was curious. With his dad’s slouchy winter hat that seemed to swallow his head, that baby’s eyes were fixed on that flag, colors, the texture, the awkward positioning on the sleeve. Oh yes it was stuck, securely pasted to the fabric.

At some point of the moment, there was a high-pitched squealing cry of frustration, but that baby knew there was a way he could get to that flag. That neither Velcro, nor length of reach could detour him. He stretched, and pulled, and reached again. He shifted in his dad’s arms, grunted, fussed and pulled until right then, right within his developing grasp (and a slight rounding of his dad’s shoulders), sweet, sweet success.

My son’s lesson to me: even if it seems difficult or out of reach, try anyway. Happy Friday!

“Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.”—Maria Montessori

Like a relationship, in literature, poetry, writing, there are days of tension, short blustery fuses of words and stance, two characters, objects, settings teetering toward resolve, the rush of water and sand against the backs of stones.

The other day in a creative writing class of high school juniors and seniors, we talked about literary tension and how sometimes when we write we want to color tension as riddled only with angst and fury. We went further to discuss how tension can color essay, narrative, lyric, be interesting and beautiful, push and pull words, rhythm, sound, and line, be so much more than a fight.  

Where do you find, create, tension in your writing, art, photography?