Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Structure of a new life

I miss J. His chest that I would rest my cheek on at the end of the evening.

There are yellow flowers on my table that were dying on the sidewalk, brought home from Sara's and my walk through the Irish Channel neighborhood a few blocks from here. We also saw a house with a stained glass window that had a large, bright sun, delightful and arresting.

My apartment, one half of a shotgun-style house, has windows on 1 side only. Getting from one end (the living room) to the other (the kitchen) takes an absurdly long time and I feel like I'm jogging through connected train cars.

Sara is my life, lying in her bed with her new little stuffed duck.

News of a friend's miscarriage over Facebook. What do you say. I give it space here in this room.

The stray cats on the porch act like they shouldn't exist, or like no one thinks they should. They hustle and slink away, heads lowered, eyes scared and knowing, no matter how often I put food and water out for them (along with my neighbor, who has been caring for them for years). A world has not wanted them to exist, and they are living in it. And I live in it, and don't want to.

I can't remember dreams lately.

My mother gave me a mother, Heather said. How is Heather? The other "mother"--from an art gallery in rural Alabama--is a wooden statue over a foot tall, made in Guatemala, with black dots of eyelashes around her eyes, a blue robe, and elongated, flat toes. She actually kinda looks like my mother.

My daughter can identify ice cream and goats by their pictures (which I hope will prepare her to do well in school) and she can speak in other voices, try to be Other. Yesterday she went down 3 slides when we were alone at the Annunciation Street playground. The slides had water, a very little bit, at their bottoms that I wiped away with too-small napkins from my purse, so just smeared the water. The look of grave joy she gets sliding down, her arms raised.

She asked where were the swings but there was a swingset without any--just bare poles, a structure there.

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