Pieces of My Life

Notecard

Ornament

Sea glass

Cotton

These are the things I have in

the memory box my husband

made from the wood of a

much loved peach tree.

The notecard is filled with words

my grandmother read to me

on my wedding day.

The ornament is from my mother

in memory of the baby 

who didn't make it.

The sea glass is from the beach

where my brothers and I watched

our children grow up.

The cotton, which I picked beneath 

a low-slung Carolina moon, is from

the field next to the home where

my granddaughter lived.

Notecard

Ornament

Sea Glass

Cotton

Mirror

When I looked in the mirror
this morning I was surprised
to see I still had long hair.
I didn't recognize myself. 
Last night I dreamed hard
that I had shaved my head like a marine.

The dream felt real enough to eat.
I was full of regret but 
also resolve to live this
new way with less of me
because what else can you do?

So! I was happy to find myself
unchanged in the weak light
of morning--at least for now.
The mirror will surprise me again
as it always does and then I will 
start at the things it nakedly reveals.

A Poem a Day

First thing. I am not a poet.

Second thing. I admire poets immensely. (I'm looking at you, Wade and Lisa.)

Third thing. I attended a poetry workshop taught by the above Lisa this weekend.

Fourth thing. April is National Poetry Month. Yes! It's a thing! 

Fifth thing. I'm accepting the challenge to write a poem a day and post it here.

Sixth thing. I suck and I know it.

Seventh thing. That was a disclaimer because I'm REALLY SCARED ABOUT DOING THIS.

Eighth thing. But yeah. These are just drafts, written quickly.

Now that I've established all that, here's today's offering.

The Odyssey

I thought I remembered what happened

in The Odyssey, which Miss Nelson made us

read in AP English the year I was 17.

But now that I'm reading it several 

lifetimes later, I am discovering 

I barely remember any of it.

Not Calypso and her "gleaming, glittering" chair.

Not the horse-lord Nestor's eldest daughter, Polycaste,

who rubbed oil on Telemachus's skin.

Not Nausicaa, who welcomed salt-stained Odysseus

to her father's kingdom.

Instead I remember the boys in my class 

with their surfer boy hair and their 

pachuli-scented jeans and the way all of us

stared out the classroom window past the 

track and the field and the streets and 

the blue, blue mountain to the west

Wondering, perhaps, what our own voyages

might be.

How I Became a Feminist

Okay.  First things first.  If you believe your mother, sister, daughter, wife, female partner, or female friend should get paid the same amount of money for the same amount of work for the same job as a man, than guess what.  You're a feminist, too.

So now that we have that out of the way, let me continue.

I've been following the journeys of a number of young women I know who have come to their feminism out of a place of anger--sometimes, I think, because their experiences with the patriarchy at home, at work, and at church have left them feeling both diminished and furious.

I was lucky.  I had grandfathers, a father, brothers, uncles, and neighbors like Stan Collins and Tom Brown who assumed (and behaved like) women were their equals--and possibly their superiors.  It wasn't until I was older that I realized not every young woman has this experience growing up.

Dudes.  Give your daughters a reason to celebrate you and the rest of your sex, yo.

TRQ and the stolen cigarettes

One of the things I love best about TRQ is that she will laugh until the tears are running down her cheeks--even if (and especially when) she's laughing about herself.

Take the story we told each other yesterday at her birthday luncheon.  We remembered the day one of my brothers (WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) stole some cigarettes when he was twelve.

OK.  I love that sentence.  It's so quaint, right?  You'd think that he'd stolen cigarettes in Mayberry.

OPIE'S FRIEND:  Hey, Opie! Let's go steal us some cigarettes!

OPIE:  Yessir!  Let's just make sure my dad or Barney don't catch us.

If you wanted to steal some cigarettes by contrast today, however, you'd have to take a golf club and break the cigarette case first instead of just sneaking a pack off the shelf like you could have back in America's reckless days when nobody wore seatbelts.

Anyway.  My brother did just that and Barney Fife arrested him.  So the Coach had to leave the football field during practice to go pick up my brother at the police station where Otis the town drunk was taking a nap in a jail cell.

Needless to say, TRQ was not best pleased with my brother.  So I said to him, "Why don't you come to work with me tonight."  I was busy working at Albertson's bakery in those days, busting up whenever I had to do some "suggestive selling" over the PA system and also busy losing wedding cakes.  But those are stories for another day.

My brother was thrilled to leave the house.  But as we crawled into the car, TRQ came out and said, "Don't steal any doughnuts at your sister's work tonight, you little thief!"

So he didn't.  And to this day (thanks to TRQ) he doesn't steal doughnuts now.

Or cigarettes either.

When TRQ and I were driving around SLC this afternoon . . .

. . . I made an impromptu left turn from a right hand turn lane. I'm not proud of this but it needed to be done if I wanted to expedite our trip to Ruby Snap for a cookie haul.  Which I did.

Meanwhile, TRQ, gripping the door handle, noted, "That's something your father would have done." It wasn't meant as a compliment.

I couldn't help but marvel at the synchronicity of all this.  I just picked up a copy of Healing After Loss by Martha W Hickman to read today's meditation. Here's what she says:

In the weeks, months, and years that lie ahead, we may find qualities and actions in our lives which surprise us until we smile and think, "I wonder.  Yes.  Maybe that's a part of _______ living in me.

What I Remembered Today

I'm going to tell you something I remembered today.

The thing I DON'T remember is if I've told you this before.  Sorry if I'm repeating myself.

Anyway. After Dad died, my therapist friend told me to keep a notebook and any time I remembered something or felt his presence somehow, to jot it down.  Which I did.  Which I continue to do.  At some point I remembered a conversation we (Dad and I--not the therapist and I) had while we were in France (my therapist didn't go to France with us), behaving like Americans who are trying hard not to behave like Americans.  I told him that I sometimes really, really, really missed my old lives--particularly the one I had when all my kids were at home and we were this crazy, noisy, vibrant, male-centric family.  And Dad said to me, "Oh, Honey.  You can't live your life that way," meaning that I couldn't keep living while looking over my shoulder for landscapes that have disappeared.

This morning at the store, I spoke with a clerk who knows my mother, mostly because they had a friend in common.  Barbara.  BIG personality.  Generous and inclusive and always game for a good time, even if her idea of a good time was going to BYU Education Week.  So the clerk told me again how much she misses Barbara and how she would give anything to go back to those days.  And suddenly I heard my dad's voice in my ear, "Honey, you can't live your life that way."

Thank you, Dad.  You probably knew I've needed that reminder.