Sons

"I am a warrior that my son may be a merchant and his son may be a poet." Thomas Jefferson.

I love that progression!

As for me, from that first moment of conception realized, my soul breathed, "let this child be a loving person.

Prayer answered.

Not on the list

In our neatly rowed patterns of library activity, comes a young Asian lady, comfortably dressed, heads for an easy chair in the furthest corner of the stacks, sits down, covers up with her coat and sleeps. Every Monday when we open. Now Monday and Tuesday.

Who is she?

Why does she sleep here in the morning?

This is an elite neighborhood, not reached by public transportation. At other libraries she would have sisters and cousins whom she reckons by the dozens, but not in our upscale demography.

And so we wonder? Illness? Overnight job? Estrangement?  Heartbreak?    We wonder.

A fly in our vichyssoise.

Confrontation

Flapping
scarlet
invitation
to some;

jagged
glass
swallowed,
to others.

The first

Recently I have been using scraps of my childhood memories to build work passwords, so that every time I sign on to my computer I have a lovely waft of long-ago sweep over me. And one I used recently was a variation of my first grade teacher's name.

I was fascinated by her. She had short, curly, dark hair, flecked with silver and I do believe a chin wart with a hair sprouting from it! Her most riveting feature, however was her diamond ring. To my five-year-old eyes its dazzle was magnetic. She would hold an open book in one hand as she read to us and slide the ringed hand in and out of the pocket of her maroon sweater. It was hard to concentrate on the story with that much glitter going on!

She was most kind and wrote on my report card under Deportment that I was "a little angel" which brought hoots of laughter from the supper table that evening.

Curiously enough, she was also my father's first teacher - in the same two-roomed school. He was one of her first pupils and I was one of the last.

Alpha and omega - with a diamond ring.

Parenting

do you know how much I love self-contained children?

I just want to hug them - and more particularly, their parents.

Child comes to library info desk: "Excuse me, could you please help me find the second book in the Ranger's Apprentice series."

From that sentence I know a world.

Independence, knowledge, manners, sense of place - all there. Certainly not by accident.

Parents dug, planted seeds, weeded,  - and above all, provided sun and room to grow.

And the world shares the harvest.

Ah, sheer dazzling ordinary beauty.

black morning

Yesterday morning I embarked on my usual morning walk around the lake. Thermometer by the door read 43 degrees. Fine.

Halfway around the lake, though with an eagle eye out for black ice, I slipped and fell. Not badly, but fell. I fell on ice about four years ago. Not since.

Okay, thinks I, no big deal and continued. One minute later I saw I was completely in the Land of Black Ice. I still don't know if there had just been a quick shower of freezing rain before I began or what. None-the-less, I was in trouble! No other walkers as far as the eye could see and now it seemed just as dangerous to retreat as to proceed. So on I went.

About five minutes later, I fell again - this time I skinned my knee - through thick sweats, mind you. Still, not a bad fall. So from that point on, I basically was walking in/on the deep, hard, crusted snow because both path and streets were totally ice. It was hard painstaking work, but I made it eventually back to my blessed front door.

I was shocked, upon reflection, to realize what a harrowing environment my morning walk had turned into in an instant - one that I have walked almost daily for nearly 20 years and never had I encountered any danger!

My scraped knee throbs. I am so lucky.

anniversary of my father's death

Thirty-two years ago
my father left this world.

His life was a quiet, steady flame
that warmed many people's hearts.

I will always miss him.

I will always love him.

I will be forever grateful that he was mine.

then and now

The scent of freshly sliced bananas sends me on a rocket ship path back to Sunday mornings as a child. For some reason, on that morning, and that morning alone, we sliced bananas and had them with milk -from a bottle that held an elongated circle of cream on the top - and sugar. They were delicious! But trumping that, on other Sunday mornings, was another delivery in that tin milk box right by our door, bottled chocolate milk. Now that was the mother lode! Chocolate milk so thick and creamy that it took a while to drink a whole glass of it. But you just wanted to make the moments last and savor that velvety swirl of goodness in your mouth

Now I think, how many walks around the lake would I have to take to counter those calories and saturated fat?

Progress? I think not

to my friend

remember
with love
the times together
that dance and sing
and smile.

wrap them around you
to warm the
keening edges
of grief.