Garden of Impossible

I spend a lot of time designing

a garden of impossible in my head. 

It’s filled with “What If” annuals and “If Only” perennials.  

The ground is not particularly well established,

layers and layers of cheap soil, but it is well-tilled.

It’s hard to distinguish a seeded plant

from a weed, so I let it all grow.

One section, on the western side,

bred a new species of “If I Had” blossoms. 

Years ago it overtook the plot, but now I prune

the vinery.  I bundle the creeper

into a big brown lawn bag,

making sure it never touches my heart.

Regret is a lot like poison ivy,

but it lasts for years, blistering the valves shut.

The eastern edge of the garden

is a wild collection of dreaming.

Skinny tall plants with big budding heads amidst

a flooding of ground cover.  “When I” is particularly

fertile this year; it grows through drought seasons.

 “If I Meet Her” keeps seeding and reseeding itself.

This May, there were twice as many shoots as last.

Right in the middle of this common greenery

is the collision of truth.  “I Am” blossoms

do not move their heads like sunflowers seeking light,

but swivel side to side every day, pinched between

“What Was” and “What Will Be.” Sometimes,

they lock their gaze on the blue sky and

do not twist at all. Even though the hose rarely finds that part

of my garden, they have the most persistent need to grow.  

They’re the blooms I cut and take inside.

Bursts of fuschia and lime green by my bedside,

and near the kitchen sink. Right now, I am sticking my nose

into the “Just Me” petals.  They smell like rain and sunshine.

If I am

If I am mostly made up of water, then let it be the water of Amelia Island and a steamy hot bath. Let me be gallons of chlorinated water from Mt. Lebanon High School Pool and rainbows of water streaming from the good fountain on the second floor of Fernway School.  Let it be cold water from a yellow Igloo jug during the fifth inning of a tied softball game.  Something rippling from the Chagrin River.   The coffee that has sat between me and my friends at the Stone Oven.  Or the metallic tasting water from the tennis center, especially after that match I played with Erin Pesko when I was sixteen.

If I am made up of connective tissue, then let it be the bungy cord from the luggage rack of the green wood paneled 1975 Ford station wagon.   Let it be the rope and the tape that Tavish wraps around every nook and cranny of his house as he concocted paths to secret treasures.  Let me be made up of the vines that wend their way around the new oaks at River’s Edge.

If I am made of apatite and bones, then let it be straight from the marrow of my ruptured humerus.  Let me be reminded forever and again of the growth inherent in hurt and healing. it be the hollow bone of the heron that swooped down on Nikki and me on the banks of the Cuyahoga River.  Let me be made of the steel rafters of Three Rivers Stadium and a dropped anchor of Chub Cay in the Bahamas.

If I am made of carbohydrates and sugar, then load me up with candy from Kovall’s.  Graeter’s ice cream circa 1983.  And my mother’s sour cream coffee cake served warm from the oven the morning of her annual Christmas brunch.

If I am made of DNA, then let it arch all the way back to the Isle of Silt, the hefty German Reinholds. And give me a strong dose of the ministering Cowans.  I’ll take my dad’s square fingernails and his love of music.  I will give thanks for my mother’s foresty hairline and her artistic taste. I will carry the eggs still in me and release all of the eggs come and gone.   But, honestly, I grieve them, the children I will never mother.

If I am made up of free radicals, then let it be so.  Let me be more free and more radical. 

If I am made of gases, please let it be the air of Abiuqui or the woods behind Dennison Hall at Miami University.  I also will take liters and liters from the swirling drives in the Rabbit Convertible, especially the air east, far out Shaker Blvd. And the air in the words spoken and heard from the pulpit at Forest Hill Church.

If I am made up of small particles of other things too, like cofactors and ions, let them be made of beach glass, especially red and bright aqua blue.  And the pea gravel from Middle Path at Kenyon College.  Let them be the first peak at the baby toes of my nieces and nephew.  Let there be stubby chewed pencils, especially those used during Monday poetry play times, and wadded up bubble gum wrappers left on my front porch.

Everyone knows happiness

Everyone knows happiness. But we forget it sometimes.
We lose it underneath the driver's seat with a random quarter,
a pen cap, and an acorn from November, 2010.
It falls to the bottom of our messenger bag with Target receipts and linty gum.
We pack it away with the winter clothes.  Way back in the closet.
It gets hidden behind the boxes of pasta and baking soda,
or gooshy and spoiled in the vegetable bin. 
We have been known to toss it in the recycling by mistake.
Or leave it on the front porch where it gets rained on.
I know I have thrown mine down in the ravine after weeding,
and have tried to relocate it in my garden but it did not take.
One time, I found it rolling around in the dryer like a magic ten dollar bill,
but by the time I took the laundry out, it had vanished.
Everyone knows happiness, but we are careless with it.
We ignore its expiration date.  We don't fill its tires to the right pressure.
We let it take such a long nap that we forget that it is living in our house.
I set mine down like reading glasses, never quite sure if I will recall where I put it.
And it sits, sometimes, on the tip of my tongue -- happiness does --
not coming to me like so many words now.
My brain rushes, panicked to find it,
but all I can do is merely point and say,
"That. That is what I am trying to say. "

Venus in transit

It wasn't until I was on the corner of Fairmount and Lee that I remembered that today was the transit of Venus.  I was riding into the sun, heading west, and I recalled that I was "seeing" something that would not happen again for 105 years.  By the time I made it to Fairmount and Coventry, where some people had set up a viewing station, I thought I ought to pull over and watch the small dot of Venus moving across the sun, but, honestly, I needed to make it to the market for some bananas so I rode on.

Then the really important thing hit me, the most important thing of all.  I would never ride down Fairmount on this day again.  This day, with its North Carolina sky.  This day, with its San Diego perfect seventy.  This day, with its fresh scooter euphoria.

Nor will I ever laugh with Claudia and Adrian the way we did at lunch. I will never cheer for Sirr as I did during mediation try-outs.   I will never fall in love with the new Jason Mraz song, Frank D. Fixer, for the first time as I did just a few hours ago.  I will never link it, as I did, to Tia, someone I wish I could love all the way. I bet I will never have the exact conversation with Sheridan on the porch again.  One in which my four-year-old friend tells me that "if we are ever not with each other for a while, you will hug me because you love me so much." I will never sit as I am sitting now, typing these words of this day.

Venus in transit?  I get it.  The allure of a once in a lifetime planetary event.  Yep.  But, really, isn't every day a once in a lifetime planetary event?  Aren't we just lucky to be here, moment by moment by moment?

More than anything

More than anything, I want assurances.
But knowing that that is not how life works,
I would simply ask for a clear path.
No, not the kind of clear path many have tread upon,
with its packed soil and wild phlox edging the walkway.
I do not need my path to be common or pretty.
I just want a way that gets my attention,
pokes -- oh so gently but firmly -- and says
yes, this is the trailhead now.

Do You Know How Much I Love You?

Lately (and by lately I mean right now), I feel like my heart is swollen to its capacity.  Like I am so full with something like love that I do not know what to do.  Tonight was the poetry play and, my god, those kids were amazing.  Even though I wove the text from things they wrote, and I have heard them practice a gazillion times and even though I chose the music, and we have sung those songs a gazillion and one times, tonight it seemed like a new bloom. 

Carter spoke his lines while his mother, with stage 4 cancer, listened.  Amani's father heard how hard it is since the divorce.  Maddie's mom cried over the story about the sick cat.  Will made everyone laugh. Twice.  Jade spoke with such conviction she shook the house.  I could go on and on.  Jack, with autism, spoke his lines perfectly.  Juliet, sweet tiny Juliet, smiled the whole 50 minutes.  Sam captivated the crowd -- paused so that they were trying to catch every dripping word. And the songs?  All goosebumps and tears. At the end, picture this: 72 kids and 300 of the people that love them singing "Lean on me" -- all clapping on the off beat, all singing with their chins to the clear blue sky.  Every heart open. Every heart.

And somewhere in the midst of it, my own heart got so big I thought my chest would crack and I would die of some kind of tenderness.  I was so proud, so humbled and so shaken by the kids’ earnest trust a good world. The thing that ten-year-olds do the best?  It's make you believe.  Believe in better.

I do not have children, except for nights like tonight when I have 72.  And let me tell you, I am one proud mama.

Fortunately

Fortunately, we get to begin again.  Re-curate who we want to be.  Re-choose the person we are.  Sometimes because of a reckless decision, sometimes through a heart breaking event, sometimes it just happens without knowing over time, and, sometimes, as happened yesterday, we begin again simply by seeing what life is in a new way and wanting to follow its call.

I usually eat alone.  I usually cook for one.  I speak with my neighbors in passing, but rarely sit on their porch.  I have conversations in my head.  I need to know to do, to take action.  I like a safe palette of choices. I love my friends, but sometimes from a distance.  I have created a beautiful home that mostly houses me.  I pendulum between fear and awe-full appreciation. 

I say these things without judgment.  They are just simple facts.

And then, yesterday, I saw a new way.  I saw how easy it is start a conversation with a stranger.  How easy it is to talk about your dead father.  How easy it is to tuck in someone else's bra strap. How easy it is to put a new sheet of paper in a typewriter.  How easy it is to cook for three or four.  How easy it is to pass a plate of food. 

How simply moving a chair from the edge of the dining room to a space at the table changed the the whole feel of the room.  How easy it is to be at the table.

How easy it was to watch someone plop down.  Open doors.  Use the washer.  Make a joke.  Tell a story.  Nuzzle her friend close.  How easy and good it is to simply say good night.  How easy it is to to be gentle and generous.  How easy it is to say yes, not knowing the details. I saw how easy it is to occupy a place and time.  How easy it is to accept, and even welcome, the unknown.  I saw how easy it was to have three beautiful women in my beautiful home, as if it had happened before and as if it will happen again.

Fortunately, something in me softened yesterday.  Something in me roused its sleepy head. Something in me said, "This is the way to be" knowing that I can be it. I am it. 

No one knew today as I tumbled through work -- I might have appeared to be the exact same person I was on Friday before we left for the long weekend.  But I know my insides have been waxed clean.  My brain has been given a dose of now-you-know-more-and-can-be-more.  And my heart feels like it wants to lift me off the ground.