Sleeping in tents on the land the bodies of the water protectors: artists, peace doulas, sage scented grandmothers, drug-infused mendicants, stoic preachers, awakened students, shrewd vets.

I was struck yesterday as people shared stories of what they had offered to the group altar – photos, bunches of flowers, a handful of wool – of how deeply personal the pains shared were. There was only one mention of the war in the Middle East, only a few brief mentions of the natural world. The griefs shared were extremely specific, very intimate. And yet nearly all of them felt universal. No one spoke whose experience did not in some ways feel familiar to my own.

Snuffed out immediately as the body cools, the skin loses translucency, the muscles freeze and the mind and all it holds, jelly like in ambition and possibility, stills.

On my visits to massage her neuropathy-riddled hands and feet and to work on the knots in her shoulders, she’d point out the crows on the telephone wires behind the house and report on the activity of the groundhog that lives in the garage. We mainly spoke of beauty on those visits. Memories of delicious meals, our handsome sons, the landscape of Japan where she’d lived for a long time. The only things she was glad to leave behind were what might be deemed ugly — Trump, especially.

So this July evening as the heat waits outside,

in no rush to get anywhere, we lie heart to heart in her twist of sheets,

What descends is grief. Heavy and sooty, it sits on my chest, presses on my heart and asks me to stop.

This not being able to breathe reminds me so much of Covid. The way these invisible things — particles now, aerosols then (remember the colorful diagrams showing how aerosols moved between members of a choir, infecting those around the sick singer in ripples?) are so present in our lives, pulling and pushing us big lugs who think we’re so clever, think we’re in control. The invisible forces heed us to slow down, to pause, to shift gears.

A short prose poem on the lifelong experience of feeling invisible.

This country is a shit show of miracles. We see them when we submerge ourselves in its possibilities.

The first was due on Mother’s Day and weeks and weeks

before my own thirty-fifth birthday. The second was due

on his sister’s birthday but had the grace to wait.

Two springs later, their grandfather, his middle namesake, died.

Three summers after, the marriage ended. We became three.

This led to me telling them both about my recent existential fear of aging. Not dying so much, but aging—alone, with fewer and fewer abilities. How this reminds me of scenes from movies when an astronaut is outside the capsule trying to make a repair but becomes untethered and floats away, their arms raised upwards as they slowly drift into never-ending blackness. It’s possibly the most terrifying scene I know.

We talk about middle of the night worries. About loneliness. Anxiety. Introversion. Filling time. And death. And then we each close up our gadgets and head home—to nap, to sew, to clean.

I saw Ralph and wondered why do we do anything with our days other than figure out how to un-gun the U.S.,, how to turn off the conspiracy cycle, how to patch up holes of hate and fill them with something that comes from sense and decency.

How on earth? How the hell?

As we twist through the subway tunnels and the cars lean to and fro, the scene is cropped and re-cropped, so that I can see only one of them, both of them, neither of them. I wait for the next image to unspool, their faces to reemerge. I am reminded of the way that mothering is an all-out experience; there’s no pause. Even kisses can be tiring.

I woke up and thought — shower or no shower? — and decided for the shower. The short version.

On this day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious instruction in public schools is unconstitutional.

I saw that I was out of half and half and remembered I was having a coffee date at 9 am and that I could wait, so I threw the ball for the dog and ate a piece of raisin bread from the loaf I made yesterday.

On this day a Malaysia Airlines Flight with 239 people on board disappeared.

Are you worthy of Fred who farms in Belleville? Or of Amrit who is divorced and seeking a submissive woman in Dallas? Of Steve who’s not sure why he’s here in Dubuque or Don who wants to be completely transparent that he’s not monogamous and NOT cheating in Indianapolis.

What is one’s worth? In a society that deems us worthy based largely on our salary and our job title, how do we locate worth as we age?

Go to therapy, yes. Figure out what’s ailing you. But do it fast because we need all hands on deck. The money and time spent in wellness culture are desperately needed elsewhere — out in the world that is ailing and needs your time, attention, and resources. This can’t be about personal branding — a sort of building of empire that is held up by capitalism and gift shop mentality. Or personal style. Or personal anything. We are all in this together, and the time is now.

Dark December night - questioning love - wishing there was more of it in this world.

My daughter once gave me the nickname of Patrice. She used it whenever I was particularly impatient. If I was grumpily badgering her and her brother to get going or sighing with exasperation at what was not happening fast enough, she’d say, “Alright, Patrice.” or “I hear you, Patrice.” And it nearly always did the trick. I laughed and snapped out of the have-to-right-now mindset and realized the silliness of my approach to the moment. Be lighter, my daughter was telling me.