Today is my fiftieth birthday. There's a gorgeous full moon. Ben and I had a wonderful dinner and then a long trike ride to the slide and swings, and back again.
I reach this milestone having done the thing I wanted most: being a parent. But I have decided there must be 50 things I still want to do and which I can do this year.
1. Fall in love like a grown up.
2. See the Grand Canyon.
3. Go to DC without marching in protest.
4. Take Ben on a real steam engine.
5. Write something that gets published.
6. Get close enough to George W. Bush to spit, and do it.
7. Lose 30 pounds.
8. Read all of Shakespeare's Sonnets.
9. Write five decent sonnets.
10. Reconnect with college pals Midge Costin, Annie DeGroot and
Leslie Miller.
11. Take my mom to the Chicago Art Institute and buy her dinner afterward.
12. Learn the names of five native butterflies in Latin.
13. Plant 50 bulbs.
14. Plant 5 rose bushes.
15. Visit Mathei Botanical Gardens.
16. Spend time on Drummond with Ben and my dad.
17. Freeze 5 pounds of stewed tomatoes.
18. Learn Spanish.
19. Spend a weekend with my sister Emily with no kids.
20. Visit my mom in Sanibel.
21. Write 50 letters in long hand.
22. Visit Toronto.
23. Make Ben's lifebook.
24. Visit Phil and Jackie in the Adirondacks.
25. Kayak on the Huron River.
26. Bike to Gallup Park with Ben.
27. Eat at the Common Grill in Chelsea and catch a play at the Purple Rose.
28. March on DC with Ben.
29. Visit Janice and Tim in Baton Rouge.
30. Take Ben to the Battle Creek Zoo.
31. Take Ben to the Hands On Museum.
32. Take Ben to Jazzfest.
33. Go to Jazzfest without Ben.
34. Visit the DIA.
35. Go to a Tiger's game.
36. Go to a Piston's game.
37. See one opera.
38. Buy a case of Raspberry Port.
39. Go Christmas caroling.
40. Go tobogganing.
41. Go to the beach at Point Pelee.
42. Pick blueberries with Ben.
43. Win the lotto and go to Hawaii for a month.
44. Spend a weekend with my nephew Cameron and Ben.
45. Walk along an ocean beach at night with a full moon.
46. Ride a roller coaster.
47. Do the Christmas bird count.
48. Go ice skating more than once.
49. Bake Christmas cookies with Emily.
50. Get a pedicure.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Thursday, August 17, 2006
City Rabbit
Coming up the stairs
from the underground,
I take my usual route:
turn left into
the oil-stained alley,
walking beside
the greasey dumpsters
and over the shining glass shards.
Something soft and brown
moves near the edge of a dumpster.
A young rabbit,
wide-eyed, looks at me,
quivering, alert.
The rabbit turns and runs,
ducking in between the grease caddy
from Sabor Latino
and the liquor store dumpster
where cardboard boxes,
empty and cut open,
spill over the top.
Hastening, I circle the
big metal boxes
looking for the vanished rabbit.
I think of Alice,
suddenly confronted
by the March Hare.
Here in August
in the fetid city,
I’ve lost the rabbit.
from the underground,
I take my usual route:
turn left into
the oil-stained alley,
walking beside
the greasey dumpsters
and over the shining glass shards.
Something soft and brown
moves near the edge of a dumpster.
A young rabbit,
wide-eyed, looks at me,
quivering, alert.
The rabbit turns and runs,
ducking in between the grease caddy
from Sabor Latino
and the liquor store dumpster
where cardboard boxes,
empty and cut open,
spill over the top.
Hastening, I circle the
big metal boxes
looking for the vanished rabbit.
I think of Alice,
suddenly confronted
by the March Hare.
Here in August
in the fetid city,
I’ve lost the rabbit.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Parents' words
All my adult life I have loved words. I find patterns in them, relish shaping them, look up meanings and enjoy hearing them spoken. There are some things I never thought I would say, let alone write. Ben has changed all that.
The first time he spoke to me, before he was born, I sat outside the examining room while his birth mom felt the jelly and the fetal monitor. Then, over the speakers I heard it: a thready and rapid buff, buff, buff. It's the only time I can remember that I had no words at all: I couldn't think, I couldn't speak. I wept profuse, embarassing tears, there on my orange plastic and aluminum chair in a clinic full to bursting with tiny hearts beating just below big hearts.
Soon after Ben was born, a friend handed me these words, carefully printed in her hand, black ink on a white square: "Never doubt for a moment, my son, that you were born in my heart, not below it." The peculiar pride of an adoptive parent.
Parenting brings unimagined combinations of words to my heart and lips. Sometimes, I distinctly hear my own mother in the words I say. Sometimes, the words are uniquely Ben inspired. Very often, I find myself thinking, "I can't believe that sentence just came out of my mouth."
Ben Talk
Do not put your fork on the cat.
No shoes in the toilet.
Rubber Ducky goes potty here.
I love you more than anything.
Do not hit your mamma, ever.
Did you say no to me?
Your rake stays outside.
You are my handsome son.
Say “yes, beautiful Mamma.”
No sticks in your mouth, please.
Use your words.
Tell Grandma you love her!
Stop poking my fat roll.
Not on the wall!
You got up there, you can get down.
Say goodnight to the moon.
Get back to bed, it’s too early.
Lie down with your bear and train.
Don’t hurt the spider.
I am so glad you came along.
The first time he spoke to me, before he was born, I sat outside the examining room while his birth mom felt the jelly and the fetal monitor. Then, over the speakers I heard it: a thready and rapid buff, buff, buff. It's the only time I can remember that I had no words at all: I couldn't think, I couldn't speak. I wept profuse, embarassing tears, there on my orange plastic and aluminum chair in a clinic full to bursting with tiny hearts beating just below big hearts.
Soon after Ben was born, a friend handed me these words, carefully printed in her hand, black ink on a white square: "Never doubt for a moment, my son, that you were born in my heart, not below it." The peculiar pride of an adoptive parent.
Parenting brings unimagined combinations of words to my heart and lips. Sometimes, I distinctly hear my own mother in the words I say. Sometimes, the words are uniquely Ben inspired. Very often, I find myself thinking, "I can't believe that sentence just came out of my mouth."
Ben Talk
Do not put your fork on the cat.
No shoes in the toilet.
Rubber Ducky goes potty here.
I love you more than anything.
Do not hit your mamma, ever.
Did you say no to me?
Your rake stays outside.
You are my handsome son.
Say “yes, beautiful Mamma.”
No sticks in your mouth, please.
Use your words.
Tell Grandma you love her!
Stop poking my fat roll.
Not on the wall!
You got up there, you can get down.
Say goodnight to the moon.
Get back to bed, it’s too early.
Lie down with your bear and train.
Don’t hurt the spider.
I am so glad you came along.
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