December

Take away the color of the sky
the field the wash of water in the
river there is nothing here but
variations of absence my bones
break and the marrow opens up
to the cold permeating splitting
like lean ice overlaying the thicket
of evergreen take it all away the
bitter air the swath of dirty white
rimming the shoulder of the road
breath freezes in pale clouds that
ascend as the snow tumbles like
ashen thoughts collecting in drifts
at the feet of the mountains I
turn my wheel navigating the
turnpike watching the monochrome
landscape fall apart between me
and the salt smeared glass of the
windshield

In the Details

I have forgotten Emma's soccer shoes. I thought I had the shoes in the rush to get out the door. I had them in my hand just fifteen before. I know I did. But there is no time before her game to turn around and go home and get them. My husband shakes his head. It appears I have dropped the ball again.

Details, Jennifer. Could you just pay attention to the details?

My feelings are bruised a little, but it is true. I forget to lock doors. I go to the store for milk and forget the milk. I am the mother at school who signs up for class helper on Columbus Day, when there is no school. I am constantly in a frenzy of disorganization. So, I shouldn't have hurt feelings at all. The details escape me.

But, no, I think I should defend myself. I am acutely aware of details. Just not the operational ones.

I am in Wal-mart. While in the paper and plastic isle, perusing the cling wrap, I find myself beside an old man. He is shopping intently for trash bags, tall kitchen size. He is dressed in all black, from his baseball hat to his loafers. Except for his tie. It jumps out at you like crayons spilled on the floor. It is an explosion of primary colors on the black backdrop, hanging out there in the middle of a Wal-mart isle. I wonder what made him choose this particular tie, this tie especially made for trash bag shopping. I select saran wrap, and pass the old man gingerly with my cart. He has a box of trash bags in his hand, reading about what I can only assume is the resiliant quality of the plastic, but he is perfectly comfortable in his audacious tie.

This is something I notice.

Recently, my family and I took an autumn trip to North Carolina, where we visited the Biltmore. It is a monument to what money can create. It stands in the mountains and is as audacious as the old man's tie. It is opulent to a beautiful fault; there is too much to see and take in, especially with three children, one of whom I had to carry throughout the entire tour of the house.

It was the view outside the house, however, that gained my attention. On the smooth stone of the Biltmore clung at least 10 or more ladybugs, just tiny drops on the massive wall. They probably were not aware that they were clinging to such a massive structure visited by thousands because of its perfection.

They were literally just ladybugs thinking they were resting on an ordinary wall.

This is something I notice.

Life, living, is so enormous. It is bursting open with details, tiny pictures of vivid humanity mostly overlooked by the masses. Except for people like me, who forget soccer shoes but never forget an old man's tie.

Just a thought from the Biltmore:

The Same Tattoo

the place is not
important the
crowd seeps into
the weak sepia
sky the ground
bleeds gray and
gravel scrapes
endlessly under
feet it is
all unimportant
but for my hand
resting on this
stone splayed
among dark blood
ladybugs drops
of dotted elegance
attached to a
sheet of granite
solid perfect
but insects don't
care to mar
the surface of
something faultless
he says to me
look at them
they like you no
no wonder since
you have the
same tattoo
which is true
a small blunder
on my back an
almost unconscious
decision permanent
unlike these
scarlett pearls
lining the neck
of this house
they can light
anywhere they
please until the
frost comes

MEET

I am tired. I have been this way for awhile. It is a mind consuming weariness; a pack of worries and responsibilities cinched together by thick ropes and laid across my back. My tiredness is nothing compared to some, and almost disabling compared to others. It is tiredness that we all feel and then will eventually feel again. We are none immune to it. I lay my head against my pillow in a dark room in a night where the sky is run through with flicks of stars. From here, they look minute, but I know they are part of an extraordinary greatness. I consider this, but draw back into something small, my small life in such a big world, where understanding is a little easier. My prayers to God, in this place of smallness, are audible to the walls that surround me, and I wonder how far the reverberations of my voice's sound reach. Do they make it the stars, to the point of enormity and unsatisfied heat, or does God hear them through the tiny, tiny perforations in the night sky, a tiny pulse of words that tell him a story? I just want to meet Him somewhere, it doesn't matter to me, and take off this pack of worries and lay it at His feet. This pillow, this place where I rest, I fear is not the rest I need sometimes.

MEET
me in the
middle where
marbles flipped
by child hands
roll in concentricity
to the core and
disappear without
a scratch across
the ground or
MEET
me at the edge
where I will
turn sharp curves
and right myself
in the pixel light
on the periphery
where borders
between opposites
blur and fade
MEET
me at the
beginning or
end of circles
radiating from
a singular stone
thrown into
the serenity
of a still lake
I do not mind
the place or
time or plane
of orientation
but
all I want
is to
MEET
there where
a reality
erupts from
a place of
crossroads

A Sermon on Emma

Amelia is learning to write. Her letters are whispery lines attached at delicate angles. She practices her waif letters at church, on all of the post cards and offering envelopes located in pockets in the back of the pews. She writes on anything she can get her hands on. She is a particular fan of these yellow leaflets entitled, "I Wish". They are meant to be used to request certain things, like a visit from the pastor, more information about becoming a church member, or to offer an idea for a sermon.

On a certain Sunday, Amelia hands my husband an "I Wish" leaflet. To her, it is as special as a fancy, embossed Hallmark card. Chris looks it over, and then elbows me gently. He points to a line in the leaflet, where Amelia has made a special request.

The line in question states, "I would like to hear a sermon on ______________".

In the blank, Amelia has written in her faint script, her sister's name. Emma.

Amelia puts in our mind, although she is unaware of it, the idea of a sermon on Emma.

I need you to know my Emma is like me, and then she is not like me. She is not like me in ways that make me impatient. She does not get in a rush for anything. She brushes her teeth (after at least 15 minutes of prodding) as if it is the ultimate leisure activity. It takes her even longer to choose appropriate socks. Emma does not consider her appearance much. She only wants to wear clothing that touches her minimally, which reduces her wardrobe choices to a pair of jeans a size too big for her and an over sized pair of pink soccer shorts (which, I may add, are made out of thin material perfect for allowing her patterned undies to be viewed by all). Emma is not bookish, much to my dismay. She is lackadaisical in completing homework, or reading. She peppers her math papers with doodles of peace signs and stick figures sporting smiley faces.

I find myself more often than not shutting my eyes and counting to ten when Emma is involved. I say her name too loudly and too accusingly too often. I want her to conform to my image of a well behaved child.

So how would a sermon on Emma work? How could her actions be used to inspire others into a Christ like life after walking out the church doors?

Let me tell you something else about Emma. She is selfless. She spent all of the money she had saved in her piggy bank on buying the neighborhood kids ice cream from the ice cream truck over the summer. She leaves me notes on my night stand that tell me how much she loves me. She sometimes gestures to me, beckoning me with her hands, so that she can kiss my cheek.

Once, when we were driving in the car, and I saw that she was deep in thought, I asked her what was on her mind. Emma answered, still staring out the window, "I am thinking of my family.....or maybe dolphins."

The sermon on Emma would probably go something like this. God has dreamed of each of us. He has fashioned us from His design. He knew how we would be, at what we would excel, and at what we would fail. And the beauty of it is, He wants it this way. We are each a priceless portrait crafted by the powerful, unchanging hand of God.

My Emma is a masterpiece. She exemplifies perfection clad in transparent pink soccer shorts, despite the aspects about her that sometimes drive me absolutely nuts. But she is not wrong. She is unique in her Godly design, and she is packaged just the way she needs to be, to follow the path already cobbled by God.

I am so flawed. I know this. I know this every time I whisper between clenched teeth, "Emma Caroline, you will be the death of me." Emma, in her pure view of everyone surrounding her, loves. She loves despite the differences in people.

So, if I were to hear the sermon on Emma, I believe the crux of the message would be this: allow people to be who they need to be, and love them anyway. God has blessed each of us with idiosyncrasies. And they exist for a reason.

Now, I wonder what the Gospel according to Emma would sound like. Jesus perhaps would forgo walking on water and swim with the dolphins.

Ordinary

My ordinary
is wrapped
satin ribbons
of ordinary
fluttering
in blue air of
ordinary
I am mesmerized
by the landscape
of ordinary
Until it turns
turns
on a dime
into infinite
memory
into something
that pierces
into the fabric
of living that
makes the recall
of events
a sharp pang of
realization of
change
something
that alters
that takes what
was normal and
shifts it into
concrete lines
of dividing
between
before and
after
of lines
cutting crevasses
into the sane
and leaving
behind a memory
of the pretty
ordinary the
soft angles of
ordinary
the gentle tangles
of ordinary

Lost Letters

I will send a letter
to nowhere to no one
I guess but I hope it
winds up washed into
your gutter in a frosted
bottle note tucked
away inside ink fading
but it would clearly
say what I wished on
thin paper yellow
at the edges
denoting the age
of the message
a timeless idea
something written
in hieroglyphics
lost for ages but
revered when
discovered in the
dark crevasses of
a tomb I want you
to know
to know
to know
but if you
don’t know
perhaps my
letter was never
meant to reach you

Letters of Straw

Write your notes
of warm affection
here where the farmer's
scythe has scalped the
wheat and left hard
stalks weathering
on a plain where the
wind once blew the
grain in mellow ripples.
The harvest has drained
the sea of nimble grass
and left behind this
rough canvas
which is fitting for
your letters. Pick
up your pen and begin:
"Dear, dear",
as the remnants of
a plentiful crop
bring blood to
your hands. I
know it hurts
to write them,
your words,
forming among the
tiny drips of
red on the field.
But see, it hurts
more to read them.
I run my hands over
the bends and loops
of the alphabet
and I prick my fingers
and the feeling is
like that of biting
the inside of your cheek,
painfully sweet,
something you do
over and over.
Thorns among the crops,
your intentions cut
open my skin and
reveal what you
meant all along.

Memory

I'll fly away

In a pew, with light filtering through the stained glass window, I am transported back, back to being a child. I put my hands on the red cushion underneath me, and I am back in the church called Gethsemane, in Martin County, Kentucky, and I am watching my grandfather, along with his sister Florna Bell, singing at the front of the country church, and their voices mingle with that of the small congregation. I am part of that congregation, with my mother and grandmother, and I am at an age between a child and a teenager, that awkward stage, where you are influenced by what surrounds you, and there I was, surrounded by these people six or seven times my age, singing, waving hands in the air.

I'll fly away, oh glory,

This is an old song, a song they usually don't sing nowadays at the church to which I belong, but when the praise band begins to sing along with one person strumming the guitar, I find myself falling through a portal backward, a swift move, and so vivid the place I land, the church, the cemetery behind it, where my ancestors rest, my great parents, Alec and Emma (my daughter's namesake), and the rest of the Cassady's, including Thomas, the patriarch of the family, who found his way into the deep folds of the Appalachian mountains from Virginia in the 1700s. I see them, my family, some distant relatives, and some closer to me, including my grandfather, John Sampson Cassady, and his hands are clasped in front of him, and he sings, with the others, old hymns, mournful but beautiful, and they stand, in stadium fashion, ascending up the cemetery, among the headstones of those who have passed on before them. I stand, a child, looking up at them, singing, and the sky showers blue and clouds over them, and the mountains stand guard and throw the gravestones into shadow.

When I die, hallelujah by and by,

I watch the band play, in my modern church, and I can feel my grandfather next to me. I remember him playing his guitar, the guitar he taught himself to play. I remember him with his Bible in his lap, studying, learning, usually quietly, always by himself. He didn't have a lot of education, but he was wise. I feel him next to me, humming to the familiar tune, one he has sung many times before.

I'll fly away.

As I write this, my daughter, my Emma, questions me, asking about my grandfather who played the guitar. She is tired, she says she is going to sleep, but before she does, she asks if people sleep in heaven. I say I am not sure, maybe we won't be tired in heaven. I tell her that we will all be happy there, and she will get to meet my grandpa, the one who sang at the our little family church in the hills of Kentucky, and played the guitar for his grandchildren. She smiles. She thinks this will be a nice reunion. She falls asleep, and she feels safe.

I am thankful for my church, which always surprises me by awaking in me feelings that have laid dormant in me for a long, long time, and for the deeply profound memories I have of my family, my roots, of things that have molded me. The old things that even now affect me, and even affect my children.

Just Breathe

"Oh I don't want to hurt, there's so much in the world to make me believe.
Stay with me, Lord, I see."
Pearl Jam



Just breathe. Feel the air enter and reach out, growing long, thin tentacles to reach thirsty molecules. Just breathe, in and out, and the world rushes like a top around you, leaving you dizzy and faltering with your hands out to find a stable place. Just breathe, a simple, involuntary act, yet when you hold your breath to make the turning stop, you are forced to take in air at the point that divides being and not being, and you are so thankful to fill your lungs up, like finding the surface after being forced under water. Just breathe, slowly, methodically, as the blur of people you know, and you don't know, and the people you think you know but don't, weave into something abstract (and at this point, a man in a dark, ill-fitting suit is looking at you saying, "I can see the points of pain, in the middle of this mess of people, who may or may not have been important, but clearly there is a point of impact here." He thinks he knows, but you breathe, controlled. He doesn't truly know, in his art head, you. As you proceed and look at the sky, you take in the air of what you know and though it should make sense, the stars circle like they are entering a dark galactic drain, and you blink hard, and shake your head, like rattling a great magic eight ball, in hopes that the right answer will float to the top. "Yes". "No". "Maybe". "Try again later." Just breathe, breathe, the audible sounds of air entering and exiting and grounding you, because in the end the pure element of oxygen, there standing proudly on the periodic table, a big emphatic O screaming, "Look at me, I am a building block of the universe, I am a great Fundamental, I am a reason for Being", is what matters. The breath in your lungs and the beating of your heart. It all comes down to this.

Neverland

Your Peter Pan shadow
Sewn childishly to
The naked balls of
My feet follows
Me everywhere
In the fading wash
Of daylight you appear
And dance long legs
Stretching out in
Front of me
You mimic
In dark motion
Me swift
And clinging
Symphonized and
Yet distorted
Your head appears
Too far away but
In a linear equation
To mine which translates
Into as fast as
Elements approach each
Other they never meet
In the center
Even if they
Seem to

Cracks in the Pavement

I walk with her. She is tiny; just a slip of a girl in mismatched clothes. It is what she chose, this blue, flowered skirt and t-shirt with a flamboyant peace sign plastered across it.

I walk with her, although she feels as if she is the only girl in the world, so intent on her task, the task of skipping cracks.

Dangerously, they loom in her path; cracks filled with vagrant weeds sticking their green heads up from such a minute amount of soil. Dangerously, they break the monotony of the cement. Jagged edges, like bolts of lightening, course through the veins of the pavement.

She skips over them, meticulously etching a path through streaks of air laced through stone.

Step on a crack, break your mother's back.

I walk with her, and I feel the fissure, like that through the pavement, break my heart open. It is like a doctor opening up the organ that keeps me alive, and examining it in an inquisitive way. Yes, this woman has signs of heartache. Yes, that should be the diagnosis: heartbreak secondary to life.

I watch her walk ahead of me, my daughter, my Amelia, so serious in her approach to piecing together the mysteries of the world that surrounds her. She could set at a table and attempt to put together a puzzle for hours; her tiny hands, fingernails containing just a faint fleck of glitter nail polish, putting things together gingerly, determining whether it is a good fit, whether it is all wrong. She is patient; she finds the right links, she takes her time, she knows when pieces work together.

I walk with her and watch her, how she approaches the cracks in the pavement, how she steps over the imperfections with precision. She avoids; her sandeled feet are inept at finding solid, unscathed ground. What a perfectionist I have on my hands.

And the fissure in my heart seems to widen. A pain shoots through me, and I cannot be sure why.

Maybe it is because I am almost 35; I have lived nearly half of my life and I have arrived at this point. I am looking behind my child, and I see all the imperfections in the world. I see the pitfalls and the heartache. I see the hardships and the trials. I know they are as inevitable as the cracks in the sidewalk. It just takes time for the cracks to form and spread. It just takes time for them to run a course through your heart when for no reason you stop and grasp your chest and wonder what just happened to you.

I walk with her. Amelia. The sun weaves through her straight hair and sets it on fire with light. She is so serious. She skips over another crack. And then another. She turns around and looks at me with her eyes that are the color of freshly minted pennies.

Momma, I love you.

She says this a lot. Out of no where she pronounces her love for me. Then she goes about the business of making the world orderly. She is meticulous, like she is solving the mathematical equations that will define the meaning of the universe. Maybe she will.

My heart hurts unexpectedly, like a wedge is being driven into it and splitting it open like a watermelon. Sometimes it aches for things that are painful; sometimes it aches for happy things, and sometimes it aches for time to stop. To stop at the moment your daughter is skipping past an imperfection on the sidewalk, copper eyes turned to you, and sun filling her hair. When she opens her mouth and in a tiny voice proclaims her love.

As I type this, my heart is hurting. Maybe that is God making me aware of things that are important. Pain alerts us. My heart, my pain, it shows me what is important.

Amelia, I walk with her. I take her hand and make sure to avoid my footfall on the next crack in the sidewalk.

Popcorn

I lick the tips of
my fingers run
my teeth along
the inside moons
of my nails your
words are salty
in the box butter
loose space like
silent change in
the theater the
light strobes across
your face zebra
stripes disappearing
reappearing one
finger grazes your
hand we both grasp
the same salty word
it is one we both
want to devour
yellow piece of
knowing yet
yet at the touch
our connection
severs credits roll
the young man
in his movie
theater vest stares
at us his broom in
hand as we leave
though opposite
exits

The Art of Skipping Rocks

Sweet boy, there is a stone there. It is buried, just a little, in the watery sand. The creek has been licking it for years, and has worn it down for you, preparing it lovingly through seasons of icy cold, and rushing spring, lazy summer, and mellow fall. I don't know how the creek knew, little one, that you would eventually come, on this day, to this spot, and see this one stone. As you dig it out of the earth, your eyes dance, just like the dancing of the sun on the creek as it seeks a place somewhere else. Maybe it will reach the river. The ocean. Or maybe it will ascend into the sky and fall on you as rain, making your eyes dance again as you split open puddles with naked feet. Sweet, sweet boy, hold your stone, the one fashioned for you, for just a bit. This one stone is worth more to me than any diamond, because now I have in my mind this snapshot of you, creekside, nestling a rock in your hand. Let it go now, child, and watch the water open up to accept it. Tiny pearls of water leap up around the stone's entry point and fall back again. You clap. Your fingernails are inlaid with black dirt. How lovely. Sweet boy, wait just a minute, and find another stone that has been waiting for you.

Twilight Storm

Octopus light
stretching tentacle
arms from margin
of night to margin
of fading sun that
clings with fingertips
scraping down the
mountain's silhouette
with small taps the
rain begins staining
pavement black in
spots before the
deluge washes the
ground with liquid
hands kneading it
in rivulets seeking
the lowest point, the
center, the crack in the
crust of the world
I dissolve as the
thunder growls from
the portrait sky framed
by naked trees blushing
with spring buds
I dissolve
liquefied by lightening
and returning to
earth

Weekend Getaway

I am homesick. I find myself going backward into childhood. I am at my grandparents' farm; I am alone in the middle of a giant field (I have crossed a small stream to arrive at this field, and I have passed by a a little hidden graveyard of rusting appliances and old farm vehicles). The field has a steep slope to it, and is it full of spring grass and wildflowers. I am alone and I feel totally at peace.

I am homesick for this place because on my way to a weekend trip to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, I drove through Kentucky, my home state. I drove past farms similar to my grandparents'. I saw abandoned farmhouses with great stone chimneys and weathered gray walls, like lonely ghosts rising in empty fields. I saw gentle creeks and rivers and lakes; I saw cattle grazing, and barns and silos. At each sight, I felt a sad pang in my chest. The place called me home, although it is no longer my home.

There is something about the country that comforts me. There is something about wide open spaces and solitude and the sound of rushing streams that suggests to me that I am whole and right. As I type this, I can feel the walls of my house falling away and I see the wide night covering wide expanses of green land like a dark embrace. And there is nothing around me but space and I hear nothing but the creature sounds of night.

My children enjoyed the mountains. Of all we did, they liked eating fried chicken at the side of a creek, and later throwing rocks into that same stream the best. We threw and threw rocks into that stream, and for some reason the act never grew old. Ethan's nails had thin black moons of dirt underneath them from digging in the dirt.

My country children. Thank the good Lord that the country is blossoming in them.


The creek speaks
In sounds gentle
Clear water
Clapping hands
Over boulders
Rocks pebbles
Rubbing them
Smooth as the
Underbelly of
A salamander
And my child
Fat dimpled
Hands digging
Into sand finding
A stone small
Enough to fit
Into his palm
He lets it go
Falls into
Crystal water
To rest only
For a little while
Until the creek
Cradles it again
Turning it over
And over
Carrying it
downstream

Life Plans

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

He was so excited, like I was unlocking a door, or like puzzle pieces were falling into their designed places.

"Yes," I say. "It's a good idea."

"But you've never wanted to do it before."

"It seems right now."

My husband is not a day to day planner, but big plans are imperative to how he lives his life. He has for years asked me to set down on paper (or, for him, an excel spreadsheet) our life goals. I have not acquiesced, as the mention of an excel spreadsheet seems to send cold chills up my spine (I do not believe every problem can be solved in the cells of an excel speadsheet, and it seemed somehow contradictory to plan out the expansive goals of life on such a software program. Perhaps Word would be better, but the ideal would be a small journal, with all the words hand written). But in my stubborness, I have become lost in a maze of tasks, and the big vision of where I thought I was going has become blurred. So, in an instant decision, I told Chris that it was time to plan it all out.

"Get the laptop. Open up the spreadsheet."

He looked at me like I had asked him to open up a long anticipated gift. We were sitting at the dinner table, surrounded by remnants of dinner. I thought I would be able to compartmentalize goals, making them into convenient check lists, but my husband doesn't work this way, either. He is a fluid thinker, goals are wide and all emcompassing, so mine started to look the same.

I was the first to list my goals. Here is a sampling:

1. Want to travel the world
2. Want to write a book
3. Huge family dinners at our house someday
4. Kids to be happy
5. At peace with God/fulfill life purpose

Some are more concrete than others. Some have a more direct path, where with others, the path has not been located yet. Some I struggle with, some I wonder if they will ever happen. But there were my goals, and it seemed better, them looking up at me from the computer. They said, Hello, this is where you want to take your life. Are you on your way yet?

Sitting there, with a trail of turkey gravy still remaining on the plate before me, I wondered if it were possible. Happy children, happy even into adulthood. Peace with my God and thankfulness for the things He has gifted to me. Peace with myself and the paths I had chosen to follow. I still don't know that. I somehow wished the spreadsheet would make a quick calculation when I entered into it information about my past experiences, my current dilemmas, my fears and expectations, and let it spit out to me the answer. But this spreadsheet was not that sofisticated. Computers can't do everything.

We have a chalkboard in our kitchen. I put quotes on it, and change those quotes periodically. I looked at Chris and directed him to put something up on our board to begin us correctly on the goals we had set.

He wrote, "Begin with the end in mind." It seemed appropriate for us. To remember the vision first, and take the steps to get there.

Lavender

My favorite smell is lavender. It is the smell of my son's nighttime bath. I wash his hair in it, and I have lotion that smells the same. When I get Ethan out of the bathtub, I wrap him up in a hooded towel and he always, always reaches for me. When I pick him up, he pulls his legs into himself, and clings to me like a wet sheet. He lays his head on my shoulder, and all I can smell is his hair. I breath it in like it is oxygen. He will likely be my last child, so it is so important to me to soak up everything sensory about him: the smell and feel of his hair, the way his small body conforms against mine when I hold him. It is such a perfect time, this after the bath time, when I hold my son.

Lavender hair
Sweet flower
Head resting
In the cup of
My hands so
Small I weave
Fingers through
Flaxen light
You do not
Bat a beautiful
Blue eye
Shadowed by
Lashes long
And unbelievable
My son my
Child with
Damp hair
Full of flowers
Sleep thinking
About stars
With heavy
Eyes and the
Moon with a
Silver robe and
Slippers knowing
That I will keep
You always and
Watch over you

Quiet Time

I have devised the plan all afternoon. I am going to sneak away from the kids, quietly, in bare feet, to the bathroom, shut the door, draw a bath hot enough to hang on the edge of pain, and melt away worries and fret, like the dissolving in water layers of thin paper. I have so few moments like this, this hope of quiet and peace. I have made the preparations. It is like devising a plan for an intricate trip; I have fed the children and laid out clothes for the next day, and packed lunches. I have inched by Ethan's room without him hearing me (sometimes I think he recognizes the the sound of my footsteps by his door, and picks his tousled head off the pillow to cry for my attention). I have evaded Amelia, who has retreated to her room and her Barbies. I am in the bathroom now, the water runs into the tub, sending spirals of white steam into the air. It is deliciously quiet, except for water. I pull out my robe, a towel, and lay them across the tub, and it is so close, this moment of immersing into the water, of washing away, of pealing away emotion and tension. I have been so careful to find myself alone. I want to be alone. I deserve to be alone.

Emma does not feel this way. She comes into the bathroom as I am putting my feet in the water.

"Mommy is taking a bath," I say, delicately, like I am going to soon break this fragile quietness of steam and lapping water. I lower myself into the tub, but Emma comes further into the bathroom.

"Honey, mommy is taking a bath." This time it is a little sterner. I am demanding my privacy. I need this solitude right now like I need air to breathe. It is that essential to me.

Emma sits up on the side of the tub. She clearly is ignoring my comments. I am about to tell her to leave again, to tell her to mind me, that I am her mother, but she speaks, with her gaze turned away from me.

"Mommy," she says, "I need to ask you something." I see her profile, see her long eyelashes that curl up in an astonishing way; they are way too long to be real, but they are, and they have been astonishing since the day she was born; the doctor who delivered her commented on her eyelashes long before he commented on her being a girl.

"What is heaven like?"

Emma has always jolted me out of my false reverie, of this seeking of comfort that I think I can find in myself. She puts her child hand on my shoulder and jerks me back to her world of wonder and questions, questions that even adults don't know the answers to, but here she is, age seven, searching for answers she thinks are simple enough to come from within a steam filled bathroom, answers she thinks her mother knows.

She does not realize that most of the time, my hands are out in the dark, feeling my way along.

"I don't know, " I say. The water ripples and makes the sound the ripples make, of tiny waves slapping against themselves, as I shift my legs in the bathtub. What do I know of heaven? Have I thought about it really? I know I see light, light abounding everywhere, breaking free from the center of atoms and exploding, covering everything like ash. But what else is there? I consider this before I answer her, knowing that this might shape her heaven image for years and years. "I think it is whatever makes you happy."

"I think dogs live there. I think Jesus plays with them."

"I think you're right," I say. "And I think we will live in a big house."

"Will you play with me in heaven?"

Emma continues to balance on the lip of the tub. She runs her hand over the towel. She is waiting on my answer, which to her is all the truth she needs.

"Honey, of course I will play with you."

"And will Daddy be there? And Ethan and Amelia?" She continues to list all her family members that are important to her, that surround her in this life. She is concerned about everyone. She leaves no one out.

"Yes, eventually they will all be there."

Emma smiles. She is losing her baby teeth, and her smile is spacey and wide, and a perfect reflection of her happiness. There is a light bulb inside her, and it has been flipped on, and the light of it surrounds her.

"I think heaven sounds awesomest of all."

Emma is so articulate in the simplicity her child mind assigns to idea of heaven. I am reminded that little children see so clearly things that adults struggle to make sense of.

My bath ends soon after my conversation with Emma. She has carried out of the bathroom a picture in her head of the Heavenly Father playing with pets, and of a big field full of her family. My picture of heaven is still pierced through with light and life. And I know my grandfather is there picking the guitar.

Nowhere

I don’t want to
go anywhere
nowhere is
a good place
to be slow
like the flow
of thick honey
motionless sucked
into a vacuum
here it is
comfortable I
am sitting legs
crossed on a
cushion of black
air not circulating
still sound doesn’t
have a molecule
to vibrate and
legs limbs muscles
don’t fire the electricity
stops the medium
of conduction evaporates
and so I like it here
this nothing this
nowhere this place
of negatives
perhaps I shall wait
here as it seems
moving is not
an option

Winter Chores

I am caught off guard by winter. In the night, while I sleep, it goes about the business of covering everything up, with snow, and ice, and cold. And I wake, to a steel gray sky, and a thick crust of white. The trees carry the burden of winter, too, holding up with frail stick arms tall slices of snow. The mantle drops from the limbs with the least bit of movement from the wind. I wish I could see the green ground, but it is silenced beneath the snow. I wonder if it could speak up even if it wanted to.

I draw my coat around me, and put on my snow cap (the creamy white one; I wear it rarely but it seems fitting now), and pull on the only pair of gloves I could find. Mittens, actually. Rainbow colored mittens. I am a sight as I emerge into the white outside, wilding a snow shovel. Snow continues to fall from the sky; tiny flecks of snow, the kind that is made when it is so cold it takes your breath away. It is light, like sugar sprinkles, falling again over everything. Like depositing layers of icy sediment, the snow is steady, then recedes a bit, but it never stops.

So I begin the task of shoveling the driveway. I make a pattern out of it. At first I move right to left, making long scrapes in the snow. The shovel grates against the pavement when it finally finds it. Right to left. Scrape. Right to left. Scrape. And then I change the pattern. I move from center right. Then center left. The shovel scrapes the pavement. I move to center again.

In the distance, I hear the scrapes of the neighbor's shovels. We are all in proximity of talking, but we don't. The cold has sucked the voices out of us. And there is something about the winter that wraps you in a blanket of solitude. So we all continue our work, creating as we go a strange rhythmic song of snow shovels grating. The sound is a little harsh, but at points is muffled according to the distance between us. I go to center, work right and then back to center. The sky sprinkles sugar fine snow all over me and the part of the driveway I have already shoveled. I'm sure my rainbow mittens would curse furiously at the cold if they could. The cold is stifling to everything around me.

But then I hear something unexpected. Out of place, but such a welcome sound, my wind chime chirps in the wind that is starting to pick up. It sings to me a promise of growth. Of spring. I hear my wind chime most during the dawn of a fierce summer storm. It bangs against itself in a furry of metallic notes, alarming me that the thunder would soon be rolling in. But here is my wind chime, barely, tentatively, sending its notes into the air.

It is saying to me, hope is coming. Let the ground rest. Let the buds yet to be formed on the trees wait just a little longer. Let God lay the cold blanket over everything, and let it all be quite. Remember to rest. Let it all rest. Hope and promise are coming.

I arrive at the end of my driveway. I pick up the last scoop of snow and fling it to the side. My neighbors have retreated back into their houses already. And the song of scraping shovels stops.

When I walk up onto the porch, I put the shovel down and listen. I still hear my wind chime continue to ting, reminding me to rest. Snow, as it falls, is not at all as noisy as rain. It has no sound at all.

Beacon

My mother is a great source of inspiration to me. I have recently felt a great sense of sadness, over many things, and in combination, they have left me almost paralyzed and withdrawing. At my worst, she came to me and said, "I am your mother." Indeed she is. God provides these people, these beacons, to you, in times of total darkness, and you hear them call to you, call you out of the hollow, and back into the light and world. They are strong for you in times you can't be.

And today, my heart is so lifted and hopeful. I see that its light is full again and the darkness is falling away. I tell this to my husband, and my friends, and then my mother, my beacon, called me from a place where she feels a little lost.

My grandmother is sick again. My mom is burdened because this is a difficult transition for her, this passing into twilight of someone that has guided her, and she loves, and she doesn't want to see in this frail state. My mother has asked me many times to write something about my grandmother. And I have not, until tonight, truly done that. But I see in my memory my mother and her mother in all these pictures, and they melded together in this poem.

Mom, you are so strong. I am with you and grandma is now and will always be with you, too.


My mother,
who came from a
woman of mountains,
of the halls of wood frame
homesteads, swept yards,
and peeling laughter
from brothers, and sisters,
from a woman who
descended steps of
stone school houses, in black
muslin skirts, and married
a young war veteran,
leaning , laughing
against bridges,
Inez, pop. 600.
My mother, who
stood in kitchens,
watching cakes baking,
eye level of polka dot
Aprons, of fifties
Formica tables and
peanut butter rooster
glasses, and
grasshopper slip-ons.
I see you, my mother, in
black and white pictures,
bangs cut straight
with Mary Janes and
cardigans, trying a smile
in a park in Cleveland.
And there's your mother,
in black and white and
long legs and dark hair
and isn't she beautiful?
And my mother you are
your mother's daughter,
strong and true and a
fighter and I am
of you and with you and
I am too her daughter;
because of you,
she continues.

Fifth Business

I took a writing class several years ago. Besides the fact that the class was a blur to me because I felt so utterly out of place (I am still not comfortable saying I'm a writer; I write, but in my mind, I am still not good enough to be called a writer), I remember one class where we discussed Fifth Business. This random term popped into my head while I was driving recently (I remember the spot it came to me, exactly; I had just passed Tim Hortons, which is a coffee shop for those of you who don't know). Fifth Business. It dawned on me that as of late my life is full of Fifth Business.

Before I sat down to write this particular blog, I googled Fifth Business. I wanted to see what might pop up. I was unaware that someone had actually written a book called "Fifth Business". Perhaps they had the idea long before I did. But, included in the description of this book was the origin of the book's title: Fifth Business, a character essential to the action but not a principal. It is a theater term; it is the folks that come onto the stage to further the plot, to make sure the main characters go in the direction they ought to go, to not stray from the storyline. They are the bellhops in all the movies that occur in hotels. They are the cabdrivers in the all the scenes where people are in cabs. Or the old woman in her recliner in the senior citizen's home that divulges at just the right theatrical moment the story of her life. And the main character realizes something at the capitulations of all these characters.

And then these characters dissolve from the scene, having spread their knowledge like golden dust and then having strode off to Neverland.

I have had so much Fifth Business lately that I ought to be walking the straight and narrow. My life's plot should be riding on a taught string.

I have been thinking about all the people that have come in and out of my life, every person that has left an impression on me; I am like a card of smeared black fingerprints left when someone might be in a hurry. I can see all of ther faces. I can hear the conversations I had with them. I can feel my mind wrapping around their comments and turning on a light switch on my head. I can see them all, but some names I have forgotten. Like the boy from college who always told be about the stories he wrote. And I would lean on one hand and listen, because truly I envied him for his create endeavors, and maybe he continued my life's plot by letting me know I could have dreams, too.

I saw him in the mall, recently, and I could not remember his name. He clearly called me by mine, but I could not remember his. Fifth business, it is essential to the action. But not principle.

More recently, though, I have been restless. I feel like I am standing still, but my mind is crawling. It is not content, it does not sit still.

My plot needs jolt. It needs to move forward.

There have been things that recently in my life have appeared so important to me. So important that I have hung my moon on them. So many of these things don't even make it to the calibre of Fifth Business; maybe they are props, distractions, general two-dimensional back drops that have not left me feeling fulfilled. But I have looked upon them as principles; things that are essential to my story.

How blinded we are by the props, the Fifth Business that is at a moment important, but fades so quickly.

I realized my principle tonight. My son, my little Ethan, has developed a fascination for Cars. Cars in general and especially Cars the movie. He asks for it constantly, in his slightly unintelligible one year old way. So, I gave him a bath and put him in his footed pajamas, and laid him in my bed. I sat down next to him, and he snuggled into me. His hair smelled like flowers. Cars was on. I stroked his hair, and rubbed his dimpled hands and he never flinched. I know he was watching his favorite movie, but I tend to think he liked me being there.

Fifth Business has its place, but Ethan, he is principle. I need to remember that.

Fifth Business always exits the stage. Principle is there until the curtain drops.