Thursday, April 19, 2007

Chips and Dip

Yesterday my car ran out of gas. Javi was with me, home sick from day care, and as I struggled with the gas can (what is it about gas cans? they mystify me) that I had lugged back from the Shell station he said, "Mama, you're doing the very best job you can do."

It's been a tough week -- I lost my job, I've got pre-wedding anxiety, I am really trying to get a house fixed up to move into, and I find myself paralyzed by exhaustion and lack of funds and anxiety about what's coming next. Ten months ago, I'd be steeping in anger and resentment, and berating anyone and everyone with the story of How I Was Done Wrong. I'd be going to bed sick and waking up nauseated. I'd be short with my kids and mean to my partner. I'd be a train wreck.

So maybe my last post was wrong, maybe I have made some progress. Yes?  I'm not wallowing in self-pity, and I'm not trying to lasso everyone else into my circle of misery and commiseration. I'm scared shitless, to be sure, and have had a few choice words to say about my former client. But still. I'm here, I'm standing up. I'm trying to do the next right thing. Life is sweet, really. Life keeps going.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

our own radishes and walnuts

When looking to feel better about myself and my circumstances, it's perhaps best not to read through my blog archives. My problems are my problems are my problems, ever present. Myself is myself. Always with the exhaustion and the kids and the lack of proper finances. Always with the scrambling and the pain of the crazy mother and the loss of -- whatever.

So I'm thinking, then, maybe it's time for a poem, as that always seems to help.

In The Month of May

In the month of May when all leaves open,
I see when I walk how well all things
lean on each other, how the bees work,
the fish make their living the first day.
Monarchs fly high; then I understand
I love you with what in me is unfinished.

I love you with what in me is still
changing, what has no head or arms
or legs, what has not found its body.
And why shouldn't this miraculous,
caught on this earth, visit
the old man alone in his hut?

And why shouldn't Gabriel, who loves honey,
be fed with our own radishes and walnuts?
And lovers, tough ones, how many there are
whose holy bodies are not yet born.
Along the road, I see so many places
I would like us to spend the night.

-- Robert Bly