In this house

We wash. We water. We spray. We scrub. We arrange and rearrange and re-rearrange all of our things. 

There are piles of papers for keeping, and a paper bag of paper for recycling. There is something sitting in the kitchen sink, while notes of coffee, eggshell, and citrus skin sing from the compost bin. This house hugs our clutter, holds it all within its walls: worn out/outgrown clothing, books, soaking oatmeal pots, notebooks, pencils, pillows, and plants. This house holds an old refrigerator, a handbuilt bread box, a long table, paintings, photographs, mirrors, latching doors, and steep stairs. Its walls of plaster and paint are scarred from hammers and nails, tacks, tape, and second-hand furniture. Oh, if these walls could talk, how they would laugh! Through the windows, winter sun washes in, mid-morning floods that pour slanted shadows across our breakfast crumbs. And so we sweep. We vacuum. We wash. 

In this house, there is silence and stillness and sweetness. There is sleep and there is sleeplessness. There is utter boisterousness - a whole wilderness of silliness. There is electronic pop music for dancing and princess soundtracks for twirling. Often, a folk music soundscape plays. There is the sound of highway, wind, stove, and storm. There is brilliant witty banter and there are bathroom jokes. There is deep discussion, celebration, and storytelling. There are fits and wailing, warm snuggling, tickling, and improvised singing. 

In this house, magic happens. There is a baby with sharp pearls pushing up through his gums, urging him to bite everything - the coffee table, the rugs, our wooden blocks, my breasts, and his father's chest. He comes at us with his mouth long. 

"Here! Bite this!" I plead, pressing something soft and safe into his sore mouth. 

This baby belly laughs, trills his lips, sings, yells, and crawls one hundred miles an hour. He reaches and stands up like a mountain climber - chairs, tables, and couches, his cliffs. 

In this house, magic happens. There is a child with immense creative intelligence. A story builder, a performer, a dancer, she is entirely herself and yet still, a stunning mystery. 

The other night, she told me she would love me forever. All because I lied beside her. My body is something she loves. "Cuddle me, Mama!" She begged, and I did. 

Is not that magic? 

Talker's Remorse

You have it again. That sudden shame. Those words spinning like a rusty roundabout inside the playground of your skull. 

This brain activity beats your heart until you consider the life of a mother monk, remaining in your home and in the woods until you are a very old woman. It is probably the coffee, or the pandemic, or perhaps you are simply deficient in both conversation and friendship. You get so excited now to be with a friend that you tend to talk and talk until your talk is like a train tumbling off a track, off a cliff toward silence, toward uncomfortable alterations in energy, toward your mind trying desperately to drag back those cars until they are back inside your body so that you may slow them to a stop at the tunnel of your teeth. 

Why must you say everything?

Now, in your remorse, you make your apologies. Then you inform your meaningless memories to hold steady. You tell your silly little ideas that they are, indeed, silly little ideas. 

And that silence is wise and worthy. 

Say your somethings slowly. Watch the words as they begin their climb out of your belly. Look at them. Don't just spit them out. For the ears that drink your splatter of syllables do not hold shields. What is said is taken and stored in the cellars of their souls and if it is not worth their keeping, then keep it inside. 

And shit it out later.