Remember my very appreciated girl?
Well, in the last 3 months she has kept up being her beautiful and productive self. Today she got a homemade haircut from me. The trimmings are adventuring to Missouri and California to hopefully become glorious houseplants in their own right. Today was a good day.
Happy Wednesday, friends.
… and you can too! Click here to join.
I have really been working on changing the way I spend (and save), and trying to take my time with each and every purchase so that I make deliberate, informed choices as much as possible. I had been doing quite well since the end of January. Yesterday I had a bad “cheat day”/”relapse” resulting in two big hauls. I’ll go over those in detail in my next spending breakdown, but I have reviewed and made note of how/why it happened and will work on actions to prevent it in the future.
After that I randomly came across this crowd-action pledge and immediately signed up for it. I already planned to get back on the horse and created actionable items to put into practice going forward, but finding this was a great morale boost. It’s really bolstering and refreshing to see other people on a similar path/with similar goals. I even signed up my close female cousin and a few friends. Today was such a good day 🙂
Poetry Ptuesday will resume in a week. Happy Tuesday, y’all.
The Yankees needed ditch diggers,
sandhogs, fodder for the wild
hunger of their mills and sent out
invitations with no RSVPs.
My people came then, dimly knowing
they had to cut away the baggage
of the selves they brought with them.
The cutting was strangely easy
as they gaped at clerks smoothing
harsh corners off their names,
docking final vowels like tails.
Distance helped the cutting too–
the ocean roiling behind them
with all that danger and disease,
the old country already swallowed
by the horizon’s bulging lead.
At most it was only a village,
a hut, the midden out back
all frozen in the endless winter
of the past. The new language
squeezed more color from that past,
making it shameful–starving winds
and nothingness. They tugged
the new words into their mouths
like odd-shaped and exotic food,
curiously spiced, hard to choke down.
The rolled its oddness on their
tongues, tried to suck the sense
from it and the new ran together
with the old like milk in coffee,
the color changing until the old
was mostly gone, half their lives
dropping off the edge of the world.
***
I had my citizenship interview last week and the officer who interviewed me was a German/Polish immigrant. He told me that his and his sister’s last names are different from his older brother and father’s because when they immigrated from Germany to Poland, their surnames were changed. He and his sister were born in Poland after the change. He explained that the original spelling was harsh sounding so they changed out a vowel to make it sound more pleasant and smoother. To make it more Anglo-friendly, I ventured. He replied that was it exactly. So there we were, American and American-to-be, sharing a snippet of immigrant life. He also shared pictures of his family’s doberman with me. It was a good day.
Today I had an eye-opening but ultimately unproductive discussion with someone I care about dearly. This person refused my help. They specifically requested that I do not treat them any different and that I treat them like normal. They didn’t want any resources even though they appreciated the offer. They told me they didn’t want what I offered. They told me they didn’t think they needed it and did not find it helpful in general. They said they’ve tried it and did not benefit. They had their own way.
They are right, of course. Unwanted help is no help at all. And I am not wrong. We hold very different views in some fundamental ways. No one did anything wrong today. We felt what we felt. We said what we said. We told what we held true, and just couldn’t get anywhere. I am learning a truly difficult lesson.
My heart is heavy and it hurts. But I had to stop forcing the issue. I have to accept that everything I want to give, stops at the boundaries of another human being. And rightfully so. I can’t tell people what they need or want. All that I can offer is of course of no benefit when it is not wanted. I have to face that, for all I can do, there is still so much I just can’t.
I feel awful. I feel lost. It’s not my fault, and it’s not anyone else’s either. That sucks. But what can I do? I can just feel how I feel. I can sit with it, breathe it out, and get back up again. I can keep going. I said my offer did not expire, and I can make absolutely sure that I’m good for it. I can still learn, too. I can change. I can do better. So I didn’t help today, I guess I’ll just have to be here tomorrow, and every day after that.
[This week’s poem arrives later than usual, my apologies. Tomorrow would have been Amanda’s 35th birthday. It is the third one after she killed herself. I always wonder about that. Did she think of how many more birthdays she would not have? Or take last month, how many more Mother’s Day(s)? Or, since she committed suicide two days before Thanksgiving, did she think about that one? (Confession: I had to look this up, I’d forgotten the date Thanksgiving fell on that year.) Or all the new Thanksgivings after that? I had planned a menu that Thanksgiving. I heard from Mini’s dad in the afternoon. The next day I still went grocery shopping. I had a spreadsheet for all my items I made before I knew my sister was dead. In a really crowded market I answered the call from an organization that coordinates organ donation, and heard this man tell me that it was too late for harvesting to be viable. Then I must have gone home and cooked. Perhaps tomorrow I will cook too. I guess even if it doesn’t feel like it, we’re incredibly lucky to have so many more meals and days we don’t even have to think about before they’re already past us.]
The Meaning of Life
There is a moment just before
a dog vomits when its stomach
heaves dry, pumping what’s deep
inside the belly to the mouth.
If you are fast you can grab
her by the collar and shove her
out the door, avoid the slimy bile,
hunks of half chewed food
from landing on the floor.
You must be quick, decisive,
controlled, and if you miss
the cue and the dog erupts
en route, you must forgive
her quickly and give yourself
to scrubbing up the mess.
Most of what I have learned
in life leads back to this.