Mum

I haven't seen my Mum for months. It hurts to see her. She wastes away in a nursing home compartmentalized with the other demented, waiting. Over 8 years ago she was beginning the signs of vascular dementia. Then, the fated fall that led to brain surgery, a slow "recovery" and then she was undone. She was the feminine side of us, she was our glue, she was our center post. She would have been a phenomenal grandmother. My oldest at twelve, knew her briefly and sweetly tries his best to connect to her. The other, never knew her as anything but this alien and is afraid. They lost out on so much without the benefit of her patience, love and mentoring. I need her and she no longer knows me. I am the youngest; everyone always said I was spoiled and had it the easiest. But she had me late in life and by the time I was mature enough to appreciate her, she was lost to me. My Mum.

The time approaches for summer breezes through the windows, bottles of Bordeaux, grilled food, dark chocolate with Chile's' (my new indulgence). It's easier to be poor in the summer, easier to hold at bay the sorrows of the cold. I was not meant for bundles or layers, for heavy shoes, for expensive winter activities. I was born golden into greens and blues and the lift of air and the sunshine. Of dark summer nights and the symphony of its shadows. This is were hope finds grace.

The boys run barefoot through the yard to dig and climb. Their legs bruised and browned and scratched from adventures. Ice cream drips from their chins, grass stains accumulate on their knees, they are free. Soon it will be hot enough to take them to the shore where they will stand at the edge of the ocean and believe in futures. Their toes sliding beneath the surf where grains of sand will wash over them.

There are these things:

The gossamer wings of unnameable insects basking in the sunlight against the outside window pane.

The laborious work of a spider weaving a a hammock of what can only be a night times dwelling as assuredly, something or one will come along to disturb it.

The promise of crickets soon enough, the chirp of bats in the blue black sky just above, a glimpse.

In the heat, the night birds call their like and I dream of a house on stilts, canopied by some light- leaved tree.

Listening to The Duke Spirit. It reminds me of of bits and pieces of my past and awakens in me a feeling of my future. It makes me feel like I'm there on stage - Chrissie Hynde, Deborah Harry, Kim Gordon. It takes me back to places in my past that made me believe in a future.

I am wandering again in and out of places and blogs and ideas and I haven't settled anywhere just yet...I am hoping when I land it will be worth it.

Do not forget your eyes

It really isn't about what you find so much as what you bump in to.

Winter has been long. I am wary of the future. The economy is bad, the news is bad, the environment is bad. What do I offer to my children in this?

The lack of a viable vehicle has meant walking to a bus stop for work. It has opened my eyes wider to the smallness of my ever growing city. It has made me realize that as a society, as a city we are oblivious to each other as humans. The sidewalks are few and neglected. Cars as steel weapons careen about oblivious to flesh and bone, blood and innocence; all that can be scrambled in a moment's impulse. I will undoubtedly be a lot more aware of people walking, of the impossible to pass sidewalks, the speed at which I travel, when I drive again.

Walking to the bus I have witnessed the sun rise and the sweep of pinks and blues over the rooftops. I have heard the silence but for the crunching of my boots in snow, the creaking of branches under the weight of an ice storm, the shrill clear sounds of winter birds and realized more closely my own mortality should a laden bough break over me.

I have waited patiently and with reward for the return of the seasonal birds. I have giggled gleefully like a child at the realization of the day grown longer.

The air is not so crisp and clean anymore. The smell of my hair or my clothes is not that of my youth. The pollution is palpable in the weave. There is the fuel smell, and rot smell and despair. It is not the smell of renewal and this, at this I falter. What do I tell my boys? How can they understand? How do I instill in them the smell of my mother's sheets dried on the line in the spring, and the crisp smell of them, of the dreams they invoked after a long day of school or play?

I awoke this morning with a longing, a restlessness. I feel like it may arrive before I have found my voice.