time of love and decorating and baking. moonself. jupiterself. sunrise.

story of where things live
Finn says "I want to talk about things!" when we sit down in the morningtime. We are friends? he asks, often. Mama, we are friends? You're my mom? We are lonely? We make maps and pictures of snow. Rainy weird december days. Job interview! And now the waiting. . .Well what we do is, map and draw. Morningtimes have been at least somewhat consistent. I feel it is radical space, mom plus kid. Radical space of our creation. In fact all space seems like radical space . . .I am trying to create radical space in my life but it isn't easy and you already knew that. Sometimes as I write I listen to the whines of Finn. He grumble scratches--wants me to play. We play dinosaur island. Sometimes I realize how my attention is right here, exactly in the now, if I let it be. But I have to realize it. Loveliness of winter is right here: green wreath, which I decorate with red bells, pinecones, prairie grasses gone to seed, dried flowers. Writing poems from the perspectives of planets lately: Jupiter and Earth, to be exact. Here are some dirty windows and snowflakes looking in through the window; here are some windows/snowflakes/sunrisings looking out. Jupiter as a tall tree's heart; the other side of the snowflakes, our home at night; regular life too regular life; and a full moon rising near a grey gleaming windchime. As we draw and write, I ask Finn questions about where things live: Where does the sun live? In the grass. Where does water live? In the ocean. Where does pink live? In dragon's blood.

the yellow leaves

& many ideas in my mind, from Lewis Hyde's The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World: "The passage into mystery always refreshes. If, when we work, we can look once a day upon the face of mystery, then our labor satisfies. We are lightened when our gifts rise from pools we cannot fathom. Then we know they are not solitary egotism and they are inexhaustible. Anything contained within a boundary must contain as well its own exhaustion. The most perfectly balanced gyroscope slowly winds down. But when the gift passes out of sight and then returns we are enlivened. Material goods pull us down into their bones unless their fat is singed occasionally. It is when the world flames a bit in our peripheral vision that it brings us jubilation and not depression. We stand before a bonfire or even a burning house and feel the odd release it brings, as if the trees could give the sun return for what enters them through the leaf"

Thinking so much about gifts; what it means to be giving; the purposes for making things and for being--

as if the trees could give the sun return for what enters them through the leaf


Now I am moving this thing I am giving; now it is in motion. The giving moves because we move, and because we are alive, an ecology, a collective being. I am moving within your abundance and you are moving within mine. I guess I mean that the things within my fingertips--so often feel caged in there, I feel achey to let them out--and yet the giving inside can be moved instead of stagnant, can be thrown up into the air, juggled and swirled and released. I think.

the magic dreaming seeds of hickory hill park, sunny cold november--

morning writing time and a sort of photo shoot/ radical acceptance

& thinking about these ideas, from jon kabat-zinn: "radical acceptance" is something one can achieve if one "takes in and responds to things as they actually are"---also "letting go of the stories we tell ourselves about how things should be"


"our desire to get it all done generates feeling chronically rushed or overwhelmed. . ."


here's where i posed finn, hoping for a holiday card:




but hey morning writing time: sometimes things are so right!

Of the first F / dragons and hammers

F Story ending with sunrise.
Finn certainly did learn to write an F this weekend--monumental! He learned to on the box of Halloween ghosties and pumpkin lights and other decorations that we were, sadly, putting away. Then he did Fs all over the place! He was f-in the place up. We went for a walk around the block, and he carried a piece of chalk and drew an F every 10 feet.

After the F moment, other things also happened. Scootering. The purchasing of blue lights, the hanging up of them, the witnessing of their circle shadows. The picking out of some new toys after a whole lot of cooperating. Also, the stickering of cooperation charts. The watching of the Muppet Show. The painting of a good dream and a bad dream (both dreams containing a dragon and a hammer; in the bad dream, the dragon is getting you, in the good dream it is saving you). The setting of the sun.

This morning we were up early (saving daylight), and as we plunked on the porchswing to watch the sunrise, in a cool reversal, Finn said, I miss the night, wanna go get the night back. Instead, we wrote. This is the new thing we do, I declare, as of today. I am trying to capitalize on the fact that I tried to explain to Finn that I'm a writer this weekend, and ever since then he says that he is too. So us writers, we get up at 6, and from 6 to 7 is sacred writing/drawing/thinking time. Every 10 minutes we are allowed to show each other our drawings/writings, but otherwise we are quiet and focused on our work. It was spontaneous this morning--but it worked out in a really nice way. And so now I declare it, right here, and hope it will continue to work. Come on, luck plus will-- !

dragon dinosaur with butterfly wings

story of this week (stress).
this week i am not sure. it was a festive weekend, with parties and parades and puppets. yet this week i am not sure. my friend asked me tonight, how has my relationship with finn changed? i could hardly explain that--she last knew finn a year ago, when he was 2. yesterday he liked the funny face i made and so he said very seriously, looking at me with a gravity, "mama, i love you." he's never said it just like that, stopping everything else to say it, that's why i was so glad. that's what i told her to explain the change in our relationship. finnegan is a person now--and he can be considerate, or pushy, or easily frustrated, or easily happy and dancey too. he danced under spiderwebs today as lauren beat-boxed a song in the "party haunted garden". i am impatient far too much, always hurrying him, moving him along, getting him buckled in, saying i'll be late for work, or late for meeting someone, or late for storytime,or his preschool, or puppet shows, i am always late, it is always happening that way. hurry up! buckle in! mama, you're kidding? that's what he always asks. because sometimes i do a crazy gruff voice because i don't know what else to do, that's how bad i freak out when stresssed. mama you're kidding?

a story of parts/ hard glittering & being taught

story with an inability to know anything precisely.
this is a story from general to specific about right now. i have been teaching. did you know i am a teacher? even though i don't know how to be one, and often i feel i don't know how to help students. many of my students have led extremely painful lives. i know many people have. but right now i feel the burden of my students' lives; i feel the heavyness of them. three of my students could not respond to the simply journal prompt of "describe a childhood memory" without crying halfway through. in the sense that they say something like "i can't finish this journal i'm crying now". childhoods full of abuse, shame, murders and violence, abandonment, no love. wars. disease. poverty. all that, you know. what do we do? here we are, hanging off each other's hands. what do we do?

i can't talk about this anymore not because i'm crying but because i don't know what else to say. feel too plaintive and exposed. how does everything connect?

love and empathy sometimes seem like drowning forces, though i know they're really good. this story is also about how i realized recently that finn didn't know i was a teacher. he knew i went to work but didn't know i was a teacher.

i have been grading. i have been falling asleep at the keyboard at one in the morning, grading and planning. i have been behind. dishes have stacked up. my life is there, precisely, in the middle of that stinking pile of dishes from tuesday through friday. now i sit here, bilberry and honey lotion rubbed into my feet (by me), friday night, showered, dishes done, blogging.

we went to a parade today! we have also done fun things recently like--visit the raptor center (where they care for injured birds, like owls, eagles, kestrels)with kid-friends annika and ellie.

i thought i'd include some pictures of me being a writing teacher. just to try to integrate, figure out how it's part of all this, this that i am. see it's a part!

finn has been crying out "i miss the sun, i miss the sun". . .on rainy days, and just when darkness hits so fast so quick at 6:30 now. . .

another part of my story right now is that my book of poems is going to be published! by rescue press! it doesn't seem real yet, seems unreal. i don't know what it means but it makes me happy! and now i feel free-er to concentrate on other poems, in some way. thank you!

lately i feel like i have the capacity to let things go, to exist, to just feel blessed (hopefully). blessed not in a blind, bland way. blessed in a hard diamond way, as in, i am learning this, and it is hard to learn this, but i am. i am being taught, recently. i feel teaching-ness all around: taught to let go, taught to not force things, taught to be resourceful and soak beans (simple), taught to be able to change, taught that things don't go according to plan, taught that one can scrape by in a very very close scrapey scrapey way and not die because of it (of course), taught so much about giving gifts; what giving means, and how it can expand things and also hurt things. i don't know. my head is swimming with learning. i hope i can get it all. i take notes by just sitting here. the bare beauty of what is, hopefully. mind-can, mind-cup, mind with major arteries, awake.