Family History

24 August 2016, 12:45 am

It happens slowly,

all at once.

Those of them who know the story

leave those of us who know less.

We who know little

begin to pass on the narrative

to those who know nothing.

We deemed it fitting,

they were so young.

What would we tell them of the hurts,

of the anger,

resentment?

I find the story necessary,

now those who were there when I wasn't

begin to fall silent. Few now can tell me

what I don't already know.

Few now can give me what I never wanted,

what now I can't live without--

the mortar to hold together

the gross, obvious bricks I couldn't bury,

the wounds that never healed.

There are pains which cannot be relieved
by therapy, by understanding,

by the act of naming.

They must be lanced and drained,

but the tools for such grow few

as time dances away from us,

as do the Ones Who Know,

the Ones Who Might Bring Understanding,

the Ones Who Are No Longer.

Look Away

10 December 2011

The pot boils,

the flower blooms,

the writing fades,

the light glooms.

We watch without blinking,

eyes watering, winking--

still, the child grows,

flourishes, goes

when we look away.

Thoughts After Bedtime At Friendly Acres

You give me poems to write:

space for me and mine to work out

our idiosyncrasies here

in a place Friendly to such things.

There is so much opportunity.

I am afraid to go to sleep,

even at 11:32 PM, when

my children have long since

left their struggles to find rest;

when my husband has been in bed

for at least an hour without me.

You must understand, this is unheard of.

Home is a complicated combination

of many ingredients. He is the first.

My children are a close second,

and after that, it's all a matter

of geography, and being in the same space

together--safe and somewhat understood,

if only for a moment.

You needn't catch every nuance;

understand every shade of meaning

entailed within our struggles.

The matter is only one of willingness

to be present, to endure,

to come together at the end of the day

on the porch with the sun in our eyes

aware that the time is slipping past us;

this won't last. We have to enjoy of each other

what we can, while we can.

That's what matters most.

The Porch

The porch is a good place to sit

and take in the rest of the farm.

Mail comes when it comes,

and if I sit here, I know when

to walk down the driveway and retrieve

the junk and what I imagine are rare

precious posts--perhaps less rare here

in such a friendly corner of the world.

The wind is cool, just right

on a day when, if I step off the porch

into the sunlight, I'm a little too warm

for comfort. The leaves are singing,

the sky is lazy, the trees are wearing

shadowy skirts that brush the grass

a darker shade of lovely.

What Matters

The thought occurred to me today that some of the most important things in life are the relationships we keep (and *how* we keep them), being creative and resourceful when needs arise, and learning to be content with what we have. Or maybe I should say that those have been some of the most important things in *my* life. When I was a single mom, being creative with what I had--physically, relationally, and in all other imaginable ways--was extremely important.

I get *very* distracted from those things now that life is not quite so demanding as it once was. Relationally, my difficulty is most pronounced when my kids ask me to do thus and so on a Saturday, and I'm so busy folding laundry that I miss the opportunity entirely. Being Busy is the number one joy-stealing culprit of my relationship with my kids. Not to harp on it, but this may come of having been a single mother for years. There was one bread-winner, one house-cleaner, one child-rearer, one planner-of-all-things for said child. How much time did I have for fun with my kid back then? And yet during those very busy years, I was deliberate about making sure my son had time with people other than me, especially kids. And I made sure he was loved by as many healthy, stable adults as I could muster to my aid.

However, I also bore the burden of the aforementioned responsibilities alone. Now that I don't, I can't imagine why the sense of busyness and urgency persists. I have five days out of almost every seven when my children are at school, and plenty of time during those days to get stuff done when the baby is napping. If I don't get it done by the end of the day, there are two parents in this household, and we work together to get things done. Not to mention the fact that my school-aged children are PLENTY old enough to make themselves useful.

During the single-parenting years, I was extremely creative with my belongings--my clothing, my furniture, objects of high artistic potentiality (I find artistic potentiality everywhere), curtains, vases, pictures by my son. I didn't have much of monetary value, but what I had, I made count. If space was lacking, I was creative with my floor plan, and I used what I had to make it feel like home. If I couldn't find something dressy in my closet, I created it myself. I may have seemed a bit eccentric, but it was an honest eccentricism. I used what I had to make something beautiful, if a bit unorthodox.

So back to what was my original line of thought:

I need to unlearn busyness. I think my husband might giggle to hear me say that (I'll find out soon enough) because I'm the world's worst procrastinator. But even when I'm procrastinating, I live in a pretty near constant state of feeling as if there's something I'm missing, and if I don't get it done, no one will.

I also need to unlearn the assumption that if there's nothing in my closet that appeals to me, there must be something lacking in my wardrobe. PAH! There was a day when I was known for my creativity with what I had available to me in my closet. I have somehow gotten away from that creativity, and I'm intending to find it again.

In a related vein, when did buying things become the answer to the [lack of] space issues in my house? First of all, I know a great many people who make do with far less space than I have, and just as many kids. In the same way that I was once known for my creativity with my wardrobe, I was also pretty well admired for my ability to make any space my own, and comfortable, without spending a dime. Let's find that again, shall we?

And most importantly, I have GOT to learn how to give an unqualified yes when my children want to spend time with me and I am able. This is, perhaps, the most difficult item on my list, because I'm not looking to RElearn it. I am not good at stopping what I'm doing, whether it's a want-to-do or a need-to-do item, and giving of my person to my kids. I'm good at doing *for* them--painting, cleaning, cooking, driving to activities. But painting *with* them? Stopping cleaning to play checkers *with* them? Going to the activity and enjoying it *with* them? I don't think I'm so good at these things. Ok, so I hate checkers. I don't play checkers with anyone. That's quite beside the point. This brand of busyness I have learned, wherever I have learned it, has got to be unlearned.

On that note, I'll close this post, because there aren't any words I need to write at this moment that are more important than the sleep that's waiting for me. Priorities. I think that's what I was getting at here, though I never said the word.

Recovering Gifts

A Piece of Her
5 June 2010

I bought a chinois just like Grandmother's--
Ebay has its uses. She never called it that--
it was just a colander with a wooden pestle,
and she couldn't have told you where or when she got it.
She was always so elusive about the recipe--some flour,
a bit of baking powder, a pinch of salt (I'm fairly certain
it was Bisquick), and the dewberries, of course,
which I always thought were just blackberries.
Turns out I was wrong--and right.
Dewberries and blackberries are related,
and the name is legitimate. That makes me smile
as I press pestle against colander, juicing the blackberries;
coming one step closer to the mind of Bernice.
She's been gone for years now,
and I thought her cobbler was gone with her,
but I've found a piece of it, by trial and error--
a piece of her.

It wasn't perfect, but it was very close. It's definitely close enough to satisfy my memory. The taste of it brought tears to my eyes. I think I'll try it again this weekend. Although The Boy wants me to make a strawberry one. That feels like blasphemy. :-) But I guess I can alter tradition a bit here and there for the sake of my children's preferences. But the *norm* will be blackberry--and I'll probably call them dewberries. I'm going to try to find someone who sells berry bushes and plant them in the back yard. I'm very excited about the prospect of having the berries in the backyard like grandmother did.

It's always such a joy to find some small gift that has been passed on to me from my family members. Mother's quilting, Grandmother's cobbler, Vovo's chorizo & eggs (eaten in moderation--whew!). None of these gifts was ever handed down directly--I'm learning them now by consulting the poignant memories I have of the smells, the sights and the sounds associated with watching these women create beautiful things. And now I create beautiful things, both theirs and my own. I feel more whole every time I recover one of these treasures in myself.

Today, I should quilt. Of course, when I say that to myself, and especially when I say it out loud to someone else, I always pay for it later. The Boy wants to go to Gamestop, The Gril wants me to fix her hair, or I find housekeeping tasks that need to be done, and I feel badly sitting down to something "non-necessary" until those things are done. The trouble is there will always be a household task to complete. If I don't *make* the time for these small but very important creative tasks, I will always find reasons why it's not a good time to get to them now. I'm learning as I recover well-hidden gifts inside myself, though, that it's important to pull those to the surface, and to give them to my children.

White Christmas

20 December 2009

Madness infuses the everyday

rituals that help our home get through

the holidays, but now and then we manage

contentment--as near perfection

as we’ll ever get--as near the wishes,

hopes and dreams we’ve feared

we’d never realize as we can hope to come.

I am given to analysis,

though I could never manage to encapsulate

what makes these moments happen,

what gives me eyes to see this

brief window into Paradise. I’ll quit now,

while I’m ahead and my vision’s clear,

the children are here and ours

for a white Christmas.

Cobbler

5 July 2009

Bernice Imogene Pope

Now and again I get back

a part of myself. A cobbler brings me

face to face with my grandmother

and the dewberry bushes that grew

at the back fence in Victoria, south Texas

when I was younger than my little ones.

She picked them thinking of me--

no one loved those berries quite as much as I--

and she pummeled them through

a v-shaped colander so only the sweet

juice was covered by a rich cobbler crust.

The pan is two feet across,

the crust golden, the berries

sweeter than they’ve ever been since

in my memory.

Back to painting...

Even for a woman of 33, with 2 kids, a fabulous husband, and a relatively stable, ridiculously happy and satisfying home life (it took long enough to get here); even having already weathered the storm of divorce in my own life, watching the marriage of one's progenitors dissolve is nothing less than harrowing.

I've had an image in my head for a while which expresses, for me, a portion of the chaos of it, and I started painting it today. I think for this one, I will dabble in mixed-media for the first time, because there are some things I simply cannot do in acrylics. We'll see how it turns out. Here's a peak at Stage 1. I apologize in advance for the quality of the photo. My husband is out of the country, and he accidentally left with our good point-and-shoot digital AND the digital SLR. So I have to work with what I have.

Certainties

5 May 2008, 12:43 PM
Bernice Imogene Pope

I didn’t know I’d never go back.
Grandmother stood in her cotton dress,
Granddad in blue coveralls as always,
waving goodbye for the last time.

We learn to count on so few things.
Even those certainties don’t last. I know.
I understand, but am caught off guard
when an intangible familiarity in an unfamiliar
face joins inevitability with my passive
acceptance of the unrelenting passage of Time.

In the space of a moment, I lose Grandmother
once more. I know I will never sit with her
again at that pale yellow formica countertop
making biscuits at the crack of dawn,
and I can be certain of nothing else.

Mandolin Rain

I rediscovered a song last night that I haven't really listened to since highschool. Bruce Hornsby & the Range had two songs that everyone knew, even if they didn't care for them. They were The Way It Is and Mandolin Rain.

I was always particularly fond of Mandolin Rain. I couldn't have said why back then other than the fact that I loved the way he played (piano), and I loved his voice, and his style, and and and... I guess those are reasons enough.

As I listened last night, though, we were sending our daughter- my step-daughter, I call her Epona- back to her mom after a short visit here with us- me, my husband and my son (the Yob). Something in the song struck a chord with the situation- the joy the kids bring with them, a portion of which walks out the door with them every time they leave, the bittersweet sadness that's a part of daily life in a blended family, the irrevocability of all the little broken pieces that led us to this place where we get to redeem as much as we can, and learn to live with what can't be borne. The joys come and go, and we always know in the back of our minds, or very much in the forefront, that what we have will never quite feel whole, but you'd have to wrench it from our cold, dead hands if you wanted to take it away from us.

MANDOLIN RAIN
Bruce Hornsby & the Range

The song came and went
Like the times that we spent
Hiding out from the rain under the carnival tent
I laughed and she'd smile
It would last for awhile
You don't know what you've got 'til you lose it all again

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go

A cool evening dance
Listening to the bluegrass band
Takes the chill from the air till they play the last song
I'll do my time keeping you off my mind
but there's moments that I find, I'm not feeling so strong

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go

Running down by the lakeshore
She did love the sound of a summer storm
It played on the lake like a mandolin
Now its washing her away once again

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go

The boat's steaming in
I watch the sidewheel spin
And I think about her when I hear that whistle blow
I can't change my mind
I knew all the time that she'd go
But that's a choice I made long ago

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go

Another Eulogy

24 November 2007, 8:15 PM
Bernice Imogene Pope
during Great Vespers

I wonder if I’m being
irreverent, taking time during Great Vespers
to remember his coveralls, her cotton
dresses I so wish I could hold now,
take in a smell I’ve all but forgotten
since last I embraced their sound, their feel,
their willingness to stand in the south Texas heat
until they could no longer see
my parents, my siblings and me.

I’d give almost anything for one more
breakfast of sausages, biscuits, gravy,
pancakes and Brer Rabbit syrup,
and the cranberry juice that accompanied
every one of her meals. I recall with a smile
she was never dreadfully shy about why.

She had a picture garden in her den. I don’t know
who started it- perhaps the previous Matriarch,
Ma Walker- regardless, Grandmother taught me
without a word, and that’s saying a lot:
she did precious little in silence.

Her ring- the one given her by my Granddad-
was once marked as mine, an heirloom
handed down to me someday when she was gone.
I find I am reluctant to receive so precious a gift,
knowing she is now, in truth, gone.

Bernice

22 November 2007, 11:32 AM
Grandmother Pope

Fifteen years ago,
we gathered at your table for a feast
we’d anticipated days on end beforehand.

I find myself relieved to have
a memory I don’t regret, one I’d go back to
if I could, for just a moment, to ask you
if granddad’s stories are true- the ones
he tells about how he lost his finger-
and to help you make yeast rolls
while the boys play football on the lawn
in the south Texas autumn.

Makes it hard at times to celebrate the day
any other way, remembering now
that you’re gone.

Glad to be wrong...

I did in fact have a picture hidden away in my wedding pictures from July, and I am TOTALLY okay with being mistaken. A few months late getting to the post (she was born in June, RIGHT before the wedding), but she's still a total cutie. The most recent addition to my side of the family, Ms. Devin. 'Bout the same size as Li'l Green. Cute, girlie & precious.

Speaking of works of art...

The latest addition to my heartstrings, Lilliana Green, or as I'm calling her, Li'l Green, held in the arms of a beaming mother Mattie. Have you seen those little baby dolls at Wally World- the ones that are supposed to look like newborns, with their closed eyes and soft features? That's EXACTLY what Li'l Green looks like.

My sister in Houston also recently had a baby- li'l Devin- but as I still have no pictures of her, I can't brag on her via my blog. Hint hint...

Notebook Sketch

14 August 2007, 2:09 PM
Of a self portrait by my uncle, sketched in a notebook and dated 3/4/99, a month and a half before his death on 4/21/99. Found the sketch while unpacking.

You held this notebook
in your hands, most likely shaking
from too much, or not enough,
of one substance or another.
The image is haunting- did you know?-
the end was near. I would come,
hold your hand as finally, at long last,
you found some form of peace.

Shy of Should

6 June 2007, 1:34 PM
Found this in my poetry file the other day- realized I never posted it, perhaps because at the time, it felt too heavy and sad. Although I guess that doesn't usually stop me. Regardless, here it is.

I found a wishing flower today. Saddened
to see so many of its dreams irretrievably lost,
I picked it anyway, for you. There is no such thing
as a hope trampled beyond redemption.

So I breathed softly on the parachutes
of which there ought to have been exactly 188,
knowing there was something shy of should-
something not quite matching up to needful-
because I promised I would hope for you,

until all of what was lost, or at least enough,
shall find its way to you upon the wind,
fall in sheets of warming, summer rain to wet
the crackled earth; revive the wishing flowers again.

Moving Mountains

6 August 2007, 4:54 PM

Anger is my worst enemy
in this fight- leaves me weak
and wondering from which part of me
I’ve responded, if I’ve even responded.
Perhaps I’ve knee-jerked once again,
made life more difficult than
necessary to prove a point.

I’m angered by the lessons learned
before I ever entered this circumstance,
muddied now by irrelevant emotions.
I must learn to validate but contextualize;
pass judgment regarding relevance
to issues at hand- a lesson
whose importance cannot be overstated.

This is no game. These are the lives
of children who look to us for sanity,
whether they know it or not. They look to us
to make life what it ought to be.

Though I would have it be so,
there are only so many mountains I can move
in a lifetime- so few I have mastered
at this point, and so many who work against
what I see as light and life.

Mistress of Meals

23 October 2006, 7:47 PM
for Bernice

I’d forgotten
the smell of Bisquick and 2%
at 5:30 in the morning.

I always thought the crack of dawn
darkness was compulsory,
as grandmother moved about
a kitchen she knew like her own
floury hand (she didn’t need much light)
pressing dough on a pale yellow,
floury formica countertop.

I was always the early riser
in my family- the one up at sunrise
when I could’ve slept ‘til noon. I woke
with the first sign of movement
in that homely room which stood
adjacent to the den. Bob Barker
was hours away, but granddad’s
sausage-grease eggs were well on their way
as I perched atop a bar stool,
eagerly awaiting my portion
of the dough. I made child-sized biscuits
and handed them over
to the mistress of early morning meals.

For all I knew back then, she was
the mistress of every meal.
I couldn’t wait for breakfast, lunch,
dinner at her house- each seemed grand
to a blonde-haired, green eyed,
sleepy little five-year-old girl
whose grandparents were her world
during those short visits
to their south Texas home.

Little did I know the woman
made everything with Bisquick.
The moist and savory smell of such
will always bring her back to mind,
more so even than the mention
of that dewberry cobbler I loved so much.
I could never manage to obtain her recipe:
“A little flour, a little milk, a little leaven…”

Mystery solved. Bisquick,
though I never did ascertain
before the bush in her backyard died,
exactly what constitutes a dewberry.

I had not pegged her as coy.
It appears I have a great deal
to learn about my grandmother.

Much to learn, and precious little
time in which to learn it. Scarce
the opportunities to sit upon that stool
these days. I am so very far away
from who and where I was back then.

I remembered her tonight, preparing
dinner. Mixing Bisquick and 2%,
that unmistakable scent aroused
longing for moments long since passed.
I called my little boy from his room,
floured the kitchen table,
and he perched atop the dining chair,
eagerly awaiting his portion
of the dough.. He made child-sized biscuits
and handed them over
to the mistress of early evening meals.

That's My Kid

14 October 2006, 10:50 AM

If you'd told me ten years ago I'd be
a soccer mom today, complete with minivan,
extra coats and snacks-in-tow-

I suppose far-fetched is an overstatement.
I'd have believed you.

What I didn't count on was the sense of pride
and joy at watching the little ones-

GOAL!!! Way to go Isaiah!

That's my kid- my kid made a goal!
It's a shame his father wasn't here to see
another first. Ah well, there'll always be
the second, perhaps even before next season-

GOAL!!! GO ISAIAH!!!

My GOD, THAT was my kid too! Did you SEE that?
That was my KID- MERCY, but he's good at this!
Why am I surprised? The little ones don't know
they can't- they only know they'll try.

GOAL!!! Good job, Kelly!

Their delight outstrips my own by far, perhaps
because their joy is by doubt unadulterated-
they do not know ambition nor self-conscious
anxiety as big folks more often do than not.

GOAL!!! Way to put it in, Quin!

Neither do they know the rules of the game,
but sakes alive, they surely know to play!

GOAL!!!

My back was turned- I didn't see the shot,
but the aftermath is unmistakable- someone scored.
High-fives all around, and victory goes to the Storm.

My little one, from allstar transformed
to weepy puddle of hunger and exhaustion,
and I apologize to coach for his off-the-field
attitude toward the game. Coach smiles,
assures me that he earned his keep.
He plays hard, and one can hardly fault
the kid who scored three goals for the team.
Three? Three goals, coach? Are you sure?

That last one I missed- my kid made that shot.
Did you see it? That was my kid.