Tag: family (page 2 of 2)

November 22, 2018 / 0 Comments

When the World was One

Sunlight peeks through the blinds. It’s 8:27 in the morning and 35 degrees outside. I awoke with my arms wrapped around my partner in life. We whispered “I love yous” in the bed that is just a little too small for us under a comforter made of some noisy synthetic.

My left big toe is stiff and tender but hurts far less than it did when we first got here. I slept in my “Make More Biscuits” tee. The remnants of yesterday’s Thanksgiving prep are visible. A smear of the vanilla pudding here, a dusting of flour there. As if they were battle scars, I’m unreasonably proud of the detritus.

There was laughter in this house last night. There was rhythm. There was wine (though none for me). There was basketball. I wasn’t sure we’d get to this feeling. It had been a tense few days. Family is complicated, but we made it. The map to here might have included escapes to museums and hipster taco joints and edibles and hard conversations and the arrival of cousins with smiles and stories and corny jokes but I’ll take it as it comes.

There will be turkey today. And ham. Macaroni & cheese. Collard greens (two ways) and green beans. Cranberry from a can. Stuffing, of course. Soon, I’ll attempt to make Parker House rolls for the second time this year and only the second time in my life. The first time was a success, but there was a Thanksgiving from my youth in New York where a classic family saying was created.

“If the rolls rise, we alright.”

They didn’t.

So, I’ll be crossing my fingers and checking my recipe twice. I’ll give proper respect to the yeast and remember the lessons of The Great British Bake-off and the Family Cooking Showdown and give my best effort. Even if I fail, though, it’s alright. I’ve got a backup plan.

The shirt says: Make More Biscuits.

I did. The dough is in the back of the fridge waiting to shine.

Just like the sun that rose with me this morning. With us.

Happy Thanksgiving.

May 13, 2018 / 1 Comment

Little Fires Everywhere

“‘Cause I know you wanna see me come home proper.”

— YG

My love of books starts with my grandmother. She was a librarian and would subscribe me to book-of-the-month clubs (Sweet Pickles and Berenstein Bears when I was first learning words and then the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown, and Choose Your Own Adventure later). It was encouraged by my mother who would take me to the library on Saturdays and leave me alone to explore the stacks with little direction. Whatever books I fancied, I could check out. As I got older, my allowances were spent on books: comic books and Stephen King novels and The Babysitter’s Club. My weekends followed common patterns: chores, basketball, books. Once my parents had thought I was missing when, in fact, I had come home from a friend’s house early to read a book I was engrossed in and fell asleep in my room with those words and characters.

I thought about how parents might nudge us toward or away from reading with small choices yesterday. A young boy was in the books section of Target, impatiently waiting for his mother to see the book he wanted. It was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

“That’s a big book,” his mom said. He was discouraged. He pleaded. She suggested a far less exciting book. His reading skills were clearly beyond it. He tried to explain, but she was uninterested and moved to leave the books section with no books at all. As his dad arrived and distracted his mother, I watched him slide the blue covered book with the boy wizard into their cart.

The experience of reading Little Fires Everywhere reminded me of how I read as a child. I would lose all track of time. I nearly missed my bus stop two days in a row because my mind had departed to Shaker Heights. I took lunches further away from the office to not be interrupted while I hung out with Pearl and Mia and Izzy and Mrs. Richardson. It was that kind of read. You should find some time for it.

It’s a story about mothers and their choices. Today is Mother’s Day, and I’m thinking about my mothers and their choices. I would have never been discouraged in a store aisle about entering a world too grown with words too big, pages too long, and binding too thick. In fact, Phyllis or Pauline would’ve likely put it in my hands before I even knew to look.

The little fires they sparked still burn today.

Thank you.

April 1, 2018 / 0 Comments

Find That Love Again

Yoga: Yoga for Connection (27 minutes)
Meditation: Ease with Everything (11 minutes)

“Something on my mind, something I gotta find.”

— Phonte

The prescription didn’t take. Well, that’s not true. I didn’t spend the week in a bad mood, but I’m struggling to shake this ennui. This morning’s session of yoga was about connecting with your breath and with yourself. It was mostly still—Shana might call it lay-on-the-ground yoga—and I was present throughout. I felt release. Alone in the house, I loudly exhaled several times. I cursed with relief. I thought I might cry.

Instead, I smiled.

That connection was fleeting, though. The meditation I do before writing these Sunday missives was an exercise in distraction. My mind wandered to to-do lists and imagining future interactions. I’m unexpectedly traveling for work in a week, and it has me uncharacteristically and unnecessarily anxious. But this isn’t the problem. I’m focusing on usual work shenanigans because the real challenge is elsewhere.

I told a friend this week that I don’t fight against the tide. I want life to be easy especially for everyone around me. I want to keep it nice. That works for me 99% of the time.

March 2018 was the other 1%. Maybe that’s why this morning’s meditation didn’t go well. Maybe I don’t want ease with everything. Maybe ease leads to complacency. Maybe trying to be easy is what got you to this uncomfortable feeling in the first place.

Probably. Sometimes. Maybe.

When I’m trying to figure my shit out, I write. So, I’m grateful this week for this space where I get to tap tap tap it out and hit publish. And for reminders that sometimes I write things I like, like this little story from 2002.

When I’m trying to figure my shit out, I read. So, I’m grateful this week for my public library branch and their seven-day rule on new releases which forced me away from digital distractions to devour Walter Mosley’s latest. I picked up J effrey Eugenides’s short story collection for this week’s adventure/challenge.

When I’m trying to figure my shit out, I eat. So, I’m grateful this week for this Epicurious meal-plan which was perfect even if my execution was not.

When I’m trying to figure my shit out, I seek fellowship. So, I’m grateful this week for lunch with my mom. Our conversation was wide-ranging but deep and probably not long enough. Afterward, though, I saw myself better.

I don’t know that I’ve ended this week having figured my shit out. I’m grateful, though. For the words. For the stories. For honesty. For the kitchen. For patience.

And, for you.

Yes, you.

November 29, 2013 / 2 Comments

Hard Knocks and Hard Conversations

“The truth remains self-evident.” – Georgia Anne Muldrow, Zulu (The Mind)

We sat around the kitchen table in my aunt-in-Law’s small home in a cute little neighborhood. Her daughter and her new husband were planning to go out to Wal-Mart to take advantage of discounts on video games. In the midst of giving them a hard time for leaving Thanksgiving festivities to shop, she notes that she’d like a new TV if it’s cheap. Somehow we twisted our way into a discussion of the poor and the choices poor people make.

“How are you going to be on assistance and have a 50 inch TV?”

“How are you going to always have your hair did and your nails done?”

“There was a woman on Judge Judy who had seven kids and was suing a man that she had tried to buy a car from that never brought her the car. Judge Judy asked her how she was paying for these seven kids without having a job. She said she got 700 dollars a month from Disability for one of her kids. ‘How are you going to buy a car when you don’t have a job?! Whose going to pay for these kids? Me? Byrd?!”

Incredulous laughter.

I wanted to say, “Yes. Judge Judy is the highest paid person on television. Maybe she and Byrd could afford to provide some additional support for families in need.”

I wanted to say, “How do we expect this woman to improve her family’s condition if she doesn’t have a car? Wouldn’t a woman with a child on Disability need a car?”

I wanted to say, “What do you think you would spend your money on if you were in high stress, grief-stricken poverty?“

I wanted to say, “Or better yet, don’t you think she spent as little as humanly possible for her nails and her ‘do? Is it possible that feeling good about how you look is a basic human want and desire? Couldn’t looking presentable help you at a government agency or a job interview or your child’s school or any of the other dozen places you might need to go in a day where people are just waiting to close the door in your face?”

Instead I drank my cran-brrr-rita and waited for the mac & cheese to finish cooking.

It’s hard to get people to acknowledge their own good luck. A two person parental unit with steady income (even if modest). Having those parents know there is better for you out there and pushing you in those directions. Always having food on the table. Always having the lights on.

These are not givens. They are fortunes. We don’t tend to see them as such. It’s difficult to tell someone they don’t have it so bad. Most of our own personal narrative is that we have overcome great burdens to be where we are.

So, single mother of the projects, just do more. Get right. Stop making stupid choices and be like me. I made it. So can you.

It’s hard to talk to people about poverty.

January 19, 2013 / 1 Comment

Do You Pray?

“Just outrun the demons, could you?” – Frank Ocean, Bad Religion

I do and I don’t know what to make of it, because I feel like a hypocrite. But I only do it when I’m at my most scared or my most fearful … and my most vulnerable. I don’t know what to do with that because it really does not align with anything that I’ve said all day today, yet I still find myself doing that. – Kyle Simpson in NPR’s On Religion, Some Young People Show Both Doubt And Respect

I’ve prayed several times over the last month. Any time I hear a siren, I take a moment to think, “may they reach their destination in time and may those in need have it.” When I know I’m powerless to change someone else’s condition, I pray they find comfort, serenity, joy, and strength. I prayed for all those moved by the passing of my father-in-law sending out both a kind of spiritual hug and thoughts of gratitude for those who sought to ease the pain for those I love so dearly. I prayed for myself. For a good night’s sleep. For empathy. For solace.

I didn’t pray to a g-d, though. At least, I don’t see it that way. I refer you back to Faith. I prayed because I believe our thoughts matter. I prayed because I do feel a connectedness and rhythm to the life and that maybe, just maybe, good thoughts, strong thoughts, powerful thoughts can nudge us all a little more towards right. In some previous location of my writing, I’ve mentioned a gift from my friend, Michelle: The Book of Jewish Values by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. The very first lesson is what to do when Hearing a Siren. I think about it daily. We love by what we do to and for others but we also love by recognizing that we are all linked.

In the last two weeks, I’ve been reminded in the best ways of this connection. No matter the differences in beliefs, I felt akin to those grieving with me. Appreciative. Sympathetic.

And so I prayed.