As It Should Be

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I am going to the zoo today to visit my friend the jaguar. I will show her my new hat. I will eat popcorn with the Hooligan and tuck myself into a corner and write somewhere while he plays and plays and plays.

My writing will likely be disjointed, nonsensical in spots because I will have to look up and keep an eye on the Hooligan periodically. He will catch my eye, wink and give me a thumbs up and I will smile and think that there was never a more beautiful boy on this planet. And all of the mothers around me will be thinking similar thoughts about their own little hooligans and that is as it should be.

 As long as they think these similar thoughts quietly and don't interrupt my writing. But they almost never do. I pull out my notebook and my pen and I am given wide berth in the playgrounds of the city. That is as it should be.

It has been a noisy week, folks. So many different kinds of noise. I leave you with this reflection for the weekend.

"Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda (translated by Alastair Reid)

Now we will count to twelve 
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Verification and Validation

Every blogger loves comments, right? It's that tiny (or sometimes titanic) bit of validation that yes! someone is reading! and liking! and commenting! and taking the time to type in the verification word that ensures they are actually a human!

I have followed a lot of blogs from afar, but until the last month or so, I haven't done a whole lot of commenting them as a result of some sort of bizarre adolescent-like insecurity. They have no idea who I am. What do they care what I think? What if they think I'm an idiot? I just commented yesterday, what if they think I'm stalking them? and so on. But then as I started to get actual human readers, I realized that a little bit of strange is really exhilarating. I love it when a new name pops up on my comments! I absolutely adore people who read every day and comment!

So in this month of posting, I have made sure to click around and leave my markings everywhere I've been. In doing so, I've collected another one of my favorite things: nonsense words. Those little randomly generated verification words delight me so much that I almost can't wait to comment on a blog so that I can collect another one.

So, without further ado, an evening of poetry.

Ode to Verification and Validation

O' the glarfi sychrosm of revally tylit.

It's more than ingsne and gustoods

The weigarm ineless of it all.

Of tringete and terall, so very synct.

Even the busist sples among us

do bahem actist and clenc.

Neither pudfat nor nonizebo can stand

to the hishanke abledshe of

conbow sicar.

O' glarfi synchrosm.

Thank you, dear readers. You indulge me. You add sprinkles to life.

These People

I have a snippet of poetry that hangs on my fridge. It's near a picture of Chicken (the cat) while he was in his Marlon Brando phase, lounging about in my mom's bathroom sink. I leave it there to remind me of the pleasure of indolence, the necessity for it.

Chicken in Marlon Brando phase

I meant to do my work today, but a brown bird sang in

the apple tree, and a butterfly flitted across the field, and

all the leaves were calling.

-Richard La Gallienn

These people

I was raised with a strong work ethic and I find it very hard to just do "nothing". I'm not a competitive person, but I am constantly setting goals for myself and then won't let them out of my teeth. It has only been in my mid-thirties that I'm learning to take "time off" and appreciate the value of indolence, of accomplishing nothing. And to do it without feeling guilty or like I have to make excuses for it.

It's all thanks to these people. These people that I love to distraction. These people who need so much from me, but what they need most is a mama who is rested and in her right mind. Thankful to these people today while I do a whole lot of nothing today and accomplish some of the most important things in life.

What If Wednesday

What if?
whisper slips
winking wordless
distant misty
dream shores.


What if?
screams
choked sobs
sweats
opens up the night.


Above is a cheery little poem fragment I've been working on for exactly a year today. I came across it in my journal and thought... what if? What if we play the What If Game today. If nothing else, it's an exercise in imagining alternate universes. Might come in handy if someone is writing a sci-fi novel this month. So here are a few that have been kicking around the noodle. Feel free to add your own. Feel free to provide answers if you have them, too.

There's a handsome devil

What if Florida had declared for Gore in 2000?

What if, like in a dream I had once, I had a small hand growing out of my left index finger that gave me advice?

What if the whole world simultaneously decided that Kim Kardashian has nothing to do with anything?

What if all my Facebook "friends" were actually all in the same room together?

What if my dad had gone to Canada instead of Viet Nam?

What if wishes really were horses? Can you imagine the smell?

What if I had married the first person who asked me?

What if I ate only bean nachos and sushi for the rest of my life?

What if my kids were horrible and annoying? Would I know? What if they really are and I just don't think so because I'm their mom?

What if suddenly there was no more electricity, ever? What would we all do?

What if someone actually read this blog and commented on it?

Dear Friend,

I was going to write you a letter today on the backs of old grocery receipts. Yards of scribblings in ink that will only disappear if you keep them in your pocket; leaving behind the random history of my family's eating habits and the price of groceries. 
This morning's oatmeal sits congealing on the table and the pile of Little People are abandoned in a heap by a hooligan earthquake in the middle of the living room floor. It all sits, but it will continue to sit a while longer. This stuff of life - the repetition, the ritual - it's always there. Comforting in its way, I suppose, but what a thing to define a life. 
I thought about an old poem of mine, scribbled on manuscript paper, my current copy a color laser print of the original (there's a message in there somewhere about the passage of time, but I digress...)


"cold hands
in my pocket
found it
there amid the
shoestringsafetypinwhippedspreadgrapejelly
always been there
now it fits"


A life changing encounter reduced to the contents of my pockets the day I wrote the poem. But if you read enough murder mysteries, you know that your whole life can be reduced to the contents of your pockets on any given day. Hence, the grocery receipts. They'll tell you more than I ever will.