as it turns out

I significantly underestimated the sacredness of this space. though quite frankly, my underestimation looks more like forgetting and then remembering, forgetting and then remembering. back in may, the night before ezra graduated from high school, the subject of the butter came up. that is, the infamous tub of butter that went missing when ezra was just three years-old and mysteriously showed up a few days later inside a lidded pot (which was nestled behind a mess of many lidded pots in the very back of a kitchen cabinet so high up I needed a small step stool myself to reach it). surely ezra was the culprit, though it still seems impossible. we were never able to prove it or explain it and he doesn't remember (or, says he doesn't) and anyway, now it's as embedded in the family folklore as both birth stories, the time I put fake toilet paper in the bathroom and the crazy magic christmas of 2010. 

I remembered writing about the butter here and went looking for it in my archives that night. something else I underestimated: the unmitigated joy of reading old posts out loud to the humans you wrote about. one post led to another and before long, we were swimming in stories and details I had long since forgotten. I cannot explain what it felt like to read these pieces out loud to the kids for the first time. the kids, who are now 18 and 22. I cannot explain what it felt like in the room that night-- story after story, their joy, my joy. I cannot overstate this. and in writing this right now, I can feel how much I want to get it right, how tempted I am to overthink it, to leave this draft open and unpublished, to get up and do something else-- to check stupid dumb instagram, to reorganize the book shelves, to wash the three dishes in the sink-- something/anything to keep from thinking through/writing through this thing that happened that was so wonderfully deep and joyful though also strangely (inexplicably, ever so slightly) painful. I want to get it right and I don't think I can.

in a year, five years, maybe ten, I'll read this and remember. what I know now, after nearly eighteen years of blogging, is that this is all that really matters.

like I said

mike's

we are not thinking about tomorrow yet. we are not thinking about how sunday will give way to monday and monday to tuesday and so on and so forth. we are not thinking about the hard things yet. not thinking about the things we did not finish. the things we should have said but didn't or maybe should not have said but did. we are not thinking about these things, these broken things. 

instead we are thinking about leftover birthday cake and christmas trees. about the avocado that might (might) be ripe in the morning. about the story the security guard at the high museum told us, the one about mick jagger. we are thinking about neon yellow ginkgo leaves and the click of the canonet, the last of the mashed potatoes in the bonne maman jar in the back of the fridge and how good it felt to sit in a dark theatre and let c'mon c'mon swallow us whole. we are thinking about the christmas tree farm that was barely a christmas tree farm, more a junkyard than anything, how that seemed to make us love it even more, how a guy named mike handed us a saw and said, any tree, any size, 35 dollars. we are thinking about the sun like honey and the smell of pine on our fingertips and the tree we cut down and tied to the roof of our car with twine that mike gave us. we are thinking about the long shadow of our car on the way home, christmas tree on top and the way we pointed at it: hey look! it's us! it's our tree, we said. tree sap high, sugar high, thanksgiving break high, finally enough sleep high, everyone is home high.

these are the things we are thinking about.

this is a picture I did not take

first written seven years ago on november 5, 2014 and when I read through it again just now (on a whim, while revisiting the archives) I thought, this is why I write here. this is why.

this is a picture I did not take

I read with ezra each night at bedtime. as in, he reads his book, I read mine. gone are the days of reading out loud. have I told you? one of my greatest joys in life has been reading roald dahl books out loud to my children. a few months ago, I begged ezra to let me read danny the champion of the world out loud to him one last time. reluctantly, he agreed and then, I should add, barely tolerated the nightly reading. so, that was that. the last time, the very very last time and now our reading together looks completely different but that's okay. I'll take what I can get.

after our twenty minutes or so of silent reading (which I have actually grown to love very much), he tossed his book in the general direction of the nightstand and turned to sleep on his left side, just like he always does. and then I turned out the light, said the prayers and sang the two favorite songs, just like I always do. and then, usually, I am quick to get up and out of there because, you know, netflix. big green couch, adult quiet time. I am ashamed to admit just how quick I am to sing those two songs and slip out of the room. I am ashamed but I am still quick.

but tonight, as I felt myself rushing through the prayer, the two favorite songs, I felt that wistful thing, that bittersweet thing, that thing that sometimes overtakes me and I lay there for a little while and I willed myself to memorize every detail. the deep green glow of the alien nightlight, arm slung over a dingy sock monkey, slight curve of a still-small shoulder, the hum and hiss of the humidifier, the sound of his breathing. sandy hair in perfect waves, pencil-drawn waves.

as if I can hold on to any of this, as if any of us can hold on to anything, or any of what happens to us. and I wondered how many times my own mother tried to memorize details like these, if she was able to hold onto any of them, if she felt the way I did tonight. I would give anything to know. but I won't know, I can't know. and it's not okay, it will never be okay but the wondering is all I have. the imagining  and the memorizing is all that's left and I'll take what I can get.

your moon is my moon is our moon

are you looking at the moon right now? get up, walk outside and look at that thing. that giant, luminous thing. take five deep breaths, take five hundred deep breaths if you need to, then let that crazy bright moon swallow you whole for a few minutes.

then march yourself back inside and sleep the sleep of a thousand babies because goodness, there's work to do.

november the nineteenth

"I insist on being shocked. I am never going to become immune. I think that's a kind of failure to see so much of it that you die inside. I want to be surprised and shocked every time."

-toni morrison

addendum

re: when the world is too much-- 

in addition to finding solace in moments written on paper (things for remembering)-- I might also recommend a spoonful of brie. just one. eaten slowly, mindfully. not that this is news, but I have come to the conclusion that brie is like if butter and cheese had a beautiful baby and I swear I felt my knees buckle in the kitchen just now, felt the weight of the world lift for just a second. 

the secret lives of secret lives

look, I don't have all the answers and certainly my finger is on no particular pulse, but I know a poem when I see one. and I know I'm partial to the back stories and the back sides of things. I once stood in the shadow of the formidable flatiron building in new york but was more taken with the nearby happenstance of a canary yellow shovel against a dirty brick wall. my proclivities are my proclivities.

(yet)

I want to write about turning fifty but I don't think I have it in me. (yet).

november the fifteenth

I keep coming back to the idea that I should have been someone else. I should have been something else. a high school art teacher. a florist. an art director. a mail carrier. a librarian. anything and/or anyone but what and/or who I am now, which is a person writing a blog post on a monday morning, in between looking for part-time jobs and hustling for more freelance photography work and googling 'where to sell old gold chains from the eighties' and 'what to do with your life when you don't know what to do with your life'.

still

peak

it's hard to do anything else right now when the trees are doing things. when they are begging you to come outside, to stand underneath them and look up.

light bulbs

I am not exactly ready to talk about the woman who approached me at target last week. me, flustered and sweaty-faced after twenty ridiculous minutes in the dressing room (first time since the before times), two ridiculous sweaters in my cart, neither of which I had any intention of buying. I am not ready to talk about the little hand-written laminated notecard the woman showed me that said something about needing food for her babies. I am not ready to admit that I followed her to the baby food aisle, even though I knew this was a common scam. not ready to talk about how she dropped container after container of baby formula in my cart, nearly one hundred dollars' worth before I finally found my voice and offered to purchase her a gift card instead. I am not ready to talk about how angry she seemed at the thought of a gift card, how much this confused me, how it had me questioning the ethics of gift cards for people in need, wondering if I'd missed something. not ready to talk about how she decided she wanted cash instead, how I obediently followed her to the front of the store to the ATM, how the whole thing put me in a trance-like state, how it felt like I was watching the entire scene unfold from the rafters of target. 

I am not exactly ready to talk about how she just disappeared. how I wandered the store afterwards, in a daze, pretending, inexplicably, to talk on my phone. how I stood in the aisle with the light bulbs and called my mother. my mother, who has been dead for nine years now. not ready to discuss how the number is no longer in service, of course, but the recording still plays and right there, in front of the general electric 4-packs of soft whites and LED bulbs and incandescents, I whispered into the phone, mom? mom? are you there? 

I am not ready to talk about how, for a second, I thought she might answer.

how

spotted while I was walking home yesterday and then, the asking, the asking, the asking, and the singing in my brain, from the moment I bent down to pick up that card to the second I reached the front door--

how 

how

how

how is it already november 

how 

I did not write this

but I sure wish I had. today I share with you the very best thing I have read in a good while.

Elegy for the Last Bottle of Ranch

This is not a poem about willpower. Though I've been an After a handful of times. Laid on my side with barely a handful of flesh to offer up-- nothing for my lover to cup & didn't even have to suck in my gut. Just sat down in jeans-- without thinking. Do you want me to sigh & say, Those were the days. We both do. But I was unsatisfied then, too. Thought, Just a few more pounds. Almost there. More running nowhere, more core strength. How I balanced hands & knees on inflatable balls--like some skinny, circus elephant. Trained to please the crowd. Hours of concrete & cattle prod. & still I stood before the mirror, reshaping my form, wishing myself clay before the kiln. Like the day I decided to cut my own bangs. The thrill of the scissor's snap each time I evened out the line more & more until Dear God someone stop me please. Little fringe of hair, cheap stage curtains stuck in midair. How I tire of this performance. & yet I can't stop auditioning for the lead. Practicing after school for months. Doris Day's I Enjoy Being a Girl with a hairbrush for a mic. All hope & no irony & I never even made it to Try-Outs. Kept that little wish for myself. Meant for someone else. Let Someone Else be better than. Let her be this, be that. Be thin, be flat. & for once just let me enjoy being abundant, fecundate. A venus figurine made flesh. Let me toss the last bottle of ranch in the trash only because I've learned to make my own. Greek yogurt & a healthy dab of Duke's. Fresh dill & lemon & garlic. Better than store-bought. Who cares what's hidden in her valleys. Come try my mac & cheese, my spring pea risotto. Join me in the kitchen as I hand roll fettuccine. Let only dough be paper thin. I'll pour the red. Glass after glass for the ample-assed. See what I have tasted & tasted and not one goddamn drop of me was wasted.

Danielle DeTiberus