Tell me. What is one of the poems you love.
A tiny bit of writing from the wee hours before the day of an eclipse
The prompt writing is after the 😎😎😎😎😎😎😎 but the writing that will ultimately help me fall back to sleep is after the 💖💖💖
💖💖💖
Tonight my parents got home from three weeks of travelling, for a funeral and medical appointments. I had sent this picture of orange fungi to my mother.
She did not say hello, or “we’re home.” The moment they got back to their house and she got my text, she wrote:
Jelly fungi.
Just two words. She identified the fungus in my picture. Because that’s how she says I love you.
I called my parents immediately to see how their trip had gone. My Dad told me his heart doctor told him she didn’t need to see him again anytime soon. That he was off her “worry-list”. That was exciting.
Before I started writing this I was just was just falling asleep. It was 12:59am when she texted me. 11:59pm for her. I think I’ve told her not to text after 10pm, because I leave my phone on, because turning it off causes me more anxiety. But I think she forgets.
I remember not having children, not having a phone in my pocket. The only time I turn my phone off is when I’m in a movie theatre, and maybe that’s why I love going to the movies so much. For two hours I am unreachable.
I have a hard time sleeping at night. I am a light sleeper. Everything wakes me up.
Tonight it was this text.
Last total eclipse was in Manitoba was February 1979. I was teaching at McIssac and pregnant with you.
There was a total eclipse the year I was born.
I already knew that. My partner and I had done some research. I’ve been near totality a few times. I remember staring through welding glasses as a child at a bright green ring around the sun. We all got a quick micro chance to witness something magic. I don’t remember how old I was. It must have been between seven and twelve because I remember which playground it happened on.
I remember not driving to Portland with my girlfriend the year the totality came near when I lived in Seattle.
And I remember another eclipse when I took my children to visit my parents and my Dad terrified my children so much that when I got home they were hiding, hysterically weeping in the one room without windows in the basement because he’d told them they would go blind if they were outside during an eclipse.
(My Dad was notorious for using extreme fear to keep us from doing dangerous things. I never go barefooted because he told me parasites would climb into my feet and eat me alive, to stop me from walking on the driveway with my bare feet after some glass broke on it one day. I think I used to love the feel of the heat on the bottom of my feet and would stand in the driveway as a child…but now I’m a socks forever kind of person)
This time, the totality is really near where we are. But we’ve decided not ti go chasing the darkness and stay here. My eldest will be staying safely in the basement, but my youngest has requested I come home from work early so we can do this thing together, with the safety of our safety certified eclipse glasses.
(I think I prefer our plans to see Haley’s Comet when I’m 85. I saw that comet with my mother when I was six, and it comes around again and I want to see it with my kid. It’s why I plan to live until at least 85. I like having exciting things to look forward to) where I don’t have to worry about losing what’s left of my already reduced eyesight.)
The thing about this text from my mom is that it tells me she was thinking of me. And having a moment. And that she wanted to share that. I love my mom. Even though we are often oil and water. She is a really wondrous human. I can see that from this perspective. I appreciate that she thinks of me at all. I’ve been gone from home for more than half my life. I left at 18, and this year I’ll be 45. It’s a long time to be home.
But I still call my parents regularly, and I try to visit them when I can. It’s strange to be the distant part of a small family unit. My brother? He lives only a kilometre away from my parents. With no neighbours between them. They look after his children, he watches their cats and house when they go away. They’ve never really been apart.
I didn’t know that was an option. Not leaving.
Both my parents are the eldests in their family. As am I. They both traveled far from home to create their own family unit.
I thought that’s what you did. But my brother never left. And neither did my parents siblings. I married an eldest, and he lived away from his family for 20 years…until last year when we helped him move home.
But me? I don’t really have a home. My parents moved me around every five years. And I continued to move myself every five years. And my kids. And when I remarried. I married another eldest. And we live nowhere near our parents.
I’m not sure what my kids will do. Heck I’m not even sure if they’ll finish school, never mind move out. Maybe it’s that thing that has me up more than anything. I honestly think my kids are pretty great, and that their resistance to being schooled is reasonable and well thought out. They love learning…and very rarely has school helped them in their insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Yet here we are again, on the precipice of yet another first day of school.
Yep. That’s it. That’s what’s keeping me up.
I’m worried about my kids.
Tomorrow the sun will disappear for awhile. But being a parent. That’s an every day thing. The rest of my microcosm of a life is pretty peachy right now, and I’m grateful for that. It lets me spend time and energy figuring out how to best help these two growing humans.
I think I can go back to sleep now. After I write a tiny bit on the prompt below.
I hope your Tuesday is beautiful.
😎😎😎😎😎😎😎
Tell me. What is one of the poems you love.
I love a lot of poems. But the one that lodged itself in my heart nearly two decades ago was by a kind-hearted poet named Terry Ann Carter.
A small poem that lets me know how I feel about being alone, like a litmus test of where I’m at in life.
Three simple lines. But every time. Oof. They hit me right here.
alone in Tokyo
even the chopsticks
in pairs
You can find more of her poetry here, and the stories behind the poems.
https://livinghaikuanthology.com/poets-on-haiku/poets-on-haiku/3723-carter,-terry-ann.html
Thank you for listening. I’d love to hear about a poem you love.
heart,
Wake
My favourite poem is by Jenner Jacob’s. When I’m an old women……. I will wear purple.
It tells about the latter stage of life, when you reach the phase of not caring what anyone thinks of you. You are obliged to perform silly behaviours, like wearing slippers in the rain,running your cane along picket fences, learning to spit.
Stormy pinkness
Human weakness
Fills my johnny cup with gloom
Your progression
My digression
Forty days this afternoon
The things we cherish are small indeed
So much the larger the need
Stormy pinkness
Set me thanklessly free
By John Linnell (from They Might Be Giants (okay, you got me, this is a They Might Be Giants song but you can't say its also NOT a poem!))