back in November, my daughter and i decided to make a shrine. we had stopped at our neighborhood coffee shop on our way home from school and they had a Dia de los Muertos shrine up. we live in an area with a very large Latino population so this was not surprising. we talked about it for a while, looking at the flowers, candles, photographs and sugar skulls. by the time we had walked one block away we had decided to create our own. November is a rough month for me as it is the month that both my mother and my son died. i never thought i would be one of those people who get hung up by stuff like that but it happens unconsciously. November comes and inevitably brings with it a shadow. i don't know if this happens to my husband or daughter. we haven't spoken of it. we speak of death and loss but have not spoken specifically of the idea of an event, flavoring a date throughout our own personal history.

we are not catholic. we are christian but not catholic. our shrine was not built so that we could "communicate with" or "pray for" the dead. our dead are dead. they need nothing from us. this shrine was, simply put, a memorial. nothing more, nothing less.

we wanted to be true to the tradition so we used marigolds from the yard, candles, photographs and painted skulls. i talked about my mother and grandmother, greenleaf talked about her baby brother and how she would like to talk about him more but she doesn't like when i cry. we were sad, we shed tears, we laughed over our silly skulls AND we decided to build another, bigger shrine next year.

it might seem weird to some people, for us to embrace this tradition so outside our own ethnic and religious culture but, and i have no other way of saying this, it was good. instead of waiting for the shadow to fall upon me i ran towards it. i danced inside of it. instead of waking my husband in the night with my muffled cries, i held my daughters hand and cried out loud. if i set aside this time, each year, as a promise to myself to remember, maybe i won't feel so bad about the times when i forget.

i will see you when the sun rises

today i forgot tennyson's middle name. it was just for a few seconds but it was a punch in the stomach. i've been thinking about him a lot. i need to do something. something i can touch. so that he's not just in my head.

my mother

i never know what brings it on. suddenly i'll find myself just really missing my mom. i can go days, weeks without thinking about her and then WHAM! it's like a blow to the chest. i think "my god, she would love this." as soren talks to me from the living room or greenleaf sings one of her weird made up songs. she knew what to do when someone was sick and she had the best recipes stored in her head. she knew just how to symapthize with you when you just needed someone to be on your side. people like to act like they "know" exactly what happens when someone dies, "they go to heaven or hell." i'm not so sure it's that cut and dry. i'm not worried about mom's immortal soul, i think she's safe, and i hope she's happy. i do wonder where she is and what she's doing "oh, she's worshipping god." how boring. i hope she's doing something more interesting than that. i hope she's doing the things that she couldn't do in life because her sick body held her back. i hope she's floating in some warm crystal clear water off a beautiful beach. i hope she's swimming with dolphins. it would be just as easy to worship god from the water don't you think? maybe more so.

the smell of his hair

sometimes, before i can stop it
the image of his blue mouth and chin
that little touch of cold about his nose,
it appears in my head.
the weight of him fills my arms.
my soft baby.

now he would be one.
now he would be two.
flesh of my flesh.

the moment ends and i'm back, washing dishes, folding laundry, casting on. there should be more spoons to wash, there should be another snow suit hanging, one more hat to knit.

take a drag

you are so sweet
with your eyes on my lips
i can see you have a craving
and my hands twitch

laughing as the innuendos float in the air
i suck them into my lungs
deep sustaining gulps
because i know that today there was no time
and tonight it is too late

before you leave again
wrap me up
and place me
in your pocket
like some habit you won't quit

i wait impatiently to exhale
and for you to breath me in

on our 10th anniversary

before one more memory gets crowded out by another,
i would like to say:
it has been fun
and funny
and slightly more than i expected.
which, as you know, with my track record, is a good thing.
when all else is gone,
when old age has vanquished all that i have of us,
i will remember this one thing:
i once lived in a home inhabited by joy.

monkey

oh my second son,
i feel as though i should put something down.
something for posterity.
so that the "we" lives on after the "i" is gone.
i informed you, in secret,
(i hope you have not told)
that i do not enjoy being a mother.
this is not entirely true.
it's just that, sometimes,
your sighs are so suggestive.
and your smile so long suffering.

gift from the sea

"i have been tricked." i thought as i stood in front of the 'religious' section in borders book store. i almost walked away but a friend of mine had suggested a book to read and i had said that i would. at first, i had searched through the fiction section and then the literature. finally, i asked a sales clerk for help. "try the the religious section" they suggested. hence my standing, grinding my teeth, in front of books bearing the faces of joyce meyer, and sylvia something or other. i had been good and tricked.

and so"gift from the sea" sits on my dresser, untouched. i look at it every morning when i wake up. it looks like a nice book. the color of the dust cover is a lovely blueish green and it's a good size and weight. it feels at home in my hands. i have not opened it since reading the description on the inside. i am waiting for my feelings of resentment to go away.

the inside cover says that it is a selection of musings that the author wrote while staying in a cottage by the ocean. things that the ocean had taught her. today i actually found myself staring at the book wondering what those lessons might be.

i love the ocean. always have. it fascinates and terrifies me. i dream of it often and miss it constantly but i won't actually go in it. well, not all the way in. not since being pulled out to sea by a fierce undertow while body surfing on spring break.

those were the days when my t-shirts proclaimed "no fear". when getting burnt and dehydrated was just part of summer. water. it was the sinking down, the disappearing, the quietness that wasn't really quiet at all but more of a rushing in your head. like wind or falling snow. i love that. i love the sound, the smell, the blue on blue of water and sky. i love the vast. the deep. but now, now i am also uncomfortable with it. because i know it's strength. because i know that it's stronger than me. maybe i didn't realize that when i was younger. or maybe i didn't think about it. not until that afternoon when i fought the ocean. i am very much aware that i did not win that fight. i'm only alive now because the ocean allowed me to live. left to my own defenses i would have drowned but the ocean, after playing with my flailing limbs, spit me out. rejected me. that's a strange way to feel but never the less true. i was beached.

now i just go in up to my thighs or lie on the sand in the shallows letting the waves pull at my hair and gently rock my body back and forth. it's funny and sad at the same time. my heart longs for the ocean. i physically ache for it but i don't give in to it. i am a selkie, but my husband hasn't hidden my pelt. i packed it away myself and now i've forgotten where i put it.

so what lessons have i learned from the sea? i learned to be cautious. i learned to live with longing. i've learned not to be dragged down by something beyond my control. ok. now i'm curious. hostilities aside, i'm ready to open the book.

a mother's mistake

there is a scent of hope drifting up from the basement.
it winds it's way up the stairs and settles in the toy room.
expectantly.
it must have escaped when i lifted the lid on the box.
the one filled with the baby clothes we so tenderly folded and put away.
along with all our dreams of you.

it was too soon to start this again.
but i did not know that.
i only knew the longing that your leaving left me with.
i did not understand that months after your death i would still feel you with me.
inside me.
that i would not be able to separate the two of you.
that i might, not on purpose, make him more than what he is.
or you, less.

tears in the night

you are not him.
you are you.

blog drama

i spent about two hours on line today, reading the blogs of strangers, friends, used-to-be friends, semi friends. i have come to one conclusion; i am not as unhappy as i think i am. in fact, by comparison, i am freakin' pollyanna. the amount of angst that i have swallowed in the past couple hours is astounding. i don't know all that goes on in people's lives or hearts and i try to be empathetic but it's really hard not to post something like "get over it!" or "grow up!". in the past couple of years i have lost both my mother and my son and yet i am still happier than 100% of the people whose blog's i read today. that's slightly disturbing and yet, slightly reassuring.

selkie

i'm dreaming about the ocean again.
the vast and the still.
green fists of hair, a mouth of mollusks,
eyes so deep and lungs so full.

please, tell me where you've hidden it?
i promise, i won't go any farther than the changing tides.

every third day off

we will not be thermometers, stilted positions, or phone calls in the middle of the day saying "hurry home".
we won't be pills, vitamins, or shots.
no hormone enhancing,
no sperm level checking.
this part of us will go untouched because i need it to be about the brush of your thumb against my wrist or the spread of your shoulders.
i might cry every 21 days and you might be witness to that but it won't be because the rumble of your voice has stopped making my body hum.

can you lift me up before i drag you down?

if it were really, truely, possible to kill time, i would have murdered yesterday.

dearest sweetheart, the bread is on the top shelf.

i hurt you and i was too proud and obstinate to put my hands up.
i said "go" and "i don't want you here."
but what i meant was,
"i'm an idiot" , "i didn't mean it" and "forgive me, please. i love you."
i don't know how my words get so garbled on their journey from my heart to my mouth.

annoying myself

i wonder if i'll ever be able to state things simply and concise.
like my love for you.
not spelled out in naughty trails leading through the house.
but just here.
naked and in your face.

does it really matter?

it's the kind of question i ask myself a million times a day.
at least.
when i'm staring at numbers and figures.
at pages, at mirrors.
when the slights sting and the well wells up.
then i start to wonder.
about schemes and pictures.
about grand canyons, the internet, countless movies i've never seen.
sand.

life after your life

it's like this. it's not standing still. it's not folding hands. it's not allowing one quiet moment because if you did, if you allowed that, then what? it's beavers and bees. it's lava and ice. it's hurtling full speed towards moving objects and throwing yourself off planets. it's shifting from foot to foot. always running. one way or another.

just another wednesday

courage.
just some courage.
and if he taught me anything...
deep breath.
look.

the blanket that held his warmth.
the sleeper that holds his blood.
the bracelet that bears his name.

i can't breath.
courage.

the hat that covered his head.
the box that holds his ashes.

what's left of my son is dust.
in the box.
little bones.
tiny red hairs.
is this courage?
are great, gulping, breaths courage?
is it courage that hides the box away?
under my nightgowns?
below the sweaters?

i wish i was capable of so much more.

saturday

some days are harder than others.