caregiver

My mother is a poem

I’ll never be able to write,

though everything I write

is a poem to my mother.

~Sharon Doubiago

tell me the power of words

tell me the power of words. when i read them they scatter across the page, my tired eyes trying to catch them as they leap away from me. the resonance of the poem that sits waiting until just this moment to be read.

tell me the power of images when my camera is too heavy to carry. heavy limbs and shuttered windows that capture heavy moods. matching up my outsides to my insides, not always aligned except through the glass that bends light and emotion. i carry no umbrella but splash through puddles, jeans soaked through to the skin. i’m smiling anyway from behind tired eyes. it gets documented still, regardless of perceived negativity, archived away for when i gain some distance and can see this time we muddled through for what it was.

a time when i owed everyone something.
a time when i owed everyone nothing.

“Good Girl” by Kim Addonizio, from Tell Me.

“Aren’t you a dog anyway, always groveling for love and begging to be petted? You ought to get into the garbage and lick the insides of the can, the greasy wrappers, the picked-over bones, you ought to drive your snout into the coffee grounds. Ah, coffee! Why not gulp some down with four cigarettes and then blast naked into the streets, and leap on the first beautiful man you find? The words ruin me, haven’t they been jailed in your throat for forty years, isn’t it time you set them loose in slutty dresses and torn fishnets to totter around in five-inch heels and slutty mascara? Sure it’s time. You’ve rolled over long enough… at the end of all this there’s one lousy biscuit, and it tastes like dirt. So get going. Listen: they’re howling for you now.”

be the surf

we only text now because there is distance, a mutual distance that we know we need. it’s safer that way, all of us behind our respective walls. every now and then some important stuff comes through the cracks, leaving the grudges and anger alone in the face of emergency. thoughts and words unjarbled stand out in bold print with a blinking cursor emphasizing their importance at that given moment.

“be the surf” he said.

i’m trying. but it’s not always as easy as that to remember. things used to be a lot simpler, when i was younger. now the world seems too big, too small, too i don’t know what i’m doing anymore holy fuck i moved across the country and my mom is dying and i miss her and yet here i am anyway straddling these worlds as i look always to the future more hopeful positive life that i know exists out there for us even as we are in a constant state of transition right this very second and health declines and emergency room visits and mom i want a new lego and the gas tank is empty and and and…

so i escape to the beach.

with a six year old hand in mine. we put our feet on sand.

hide under the pier.

marvel at the vastness.

laugh at the silliness.

be in the moment, drippy ice cream cones and all.

and never ever, lose sight of the future.
be the surf, yes. it’s a good mantra.

lazy hazy daze

wall to wall carpeting invites lounging. i had forgotten this about him. legos spread underfoot, he marks his territory in this new space. i can’t blame him, and so i step gingerly. i am marking my territory too, with photos tacked to the walls and buddhas placed methodically as reminders to breathe.

upon arriving i realized our need for floor pillows. i am easily distracted by reality am i not? floor pillows are really not high on my priority list as we unpack and disassemble life as we knew it and walk boldly into something new and somewhat surprising. we dig around in closets and attics up here in this space called “studio”. he found my old stuffed bear from the early 80′s and it’s become a staple in our space ever since. a symbol of comfort. the blending of the old and new lives that are creasing together like a to-do list that’s been shoved deep into a pocket.

there is more empathy here between us, as we figure this out. “this” being everything. everything that is new. new light pouring in from new windows. new staircases and forgotten items left on the second floors and momma working at night and dark kitchens with stained glass lampshades and tall beds and cats that disappear all day for hours at a time in the vastness of this space.

i mother differently here. it’s all part of the process. he sees me in the middle. he sees himself in me. i am momma. i am daughter. i am caregiver. i am bratty teenager. we are all one and the same as he sees me tuck my mom into bed and smile at her vacantness and make conversation with her silence.

he holds my hand as i hold hers.

this is family. this is love. this is life as we know it right now. this is what is reality. and it’s beautiful. and tough. and good. it’s filled with sandy subarus and beach chairs and popsicles before dinner and barefeet and too much tv and legos on the floor.

and that’s ok with me.
i’m learning to look before i leap.

~~~~

ps: you can join me at shutter sisters today if you feel so inclined to share a bit of your everyday with me.

1823 miles

for three days our world fit in the cab of a truck.
our happy place, we three.
a truck driving momma
a boy
a cat

during our travels i shot exclusively with my iphone, a freeing experience to be honest. so, enjoy these snippets of our big adventure until i find some time to gather up the words to do it justice.

 

please excuse my absence in this space (and others!) … it only took three days to drive from austin to the east coast. but i’m finding it’s taking a bit more time than that to settle in.

xo, meredith

light and dark

it is always this way,
and so i’ve grown accustomed to it.
the yin yang complimenting one another
gaining balance in a wobbly world.
this is light and dark.

i have arrived and there’s nowhere else to be but right here
right now.
this is me finding my light, finding my love.
my love, my smile, my truth.
5:45pm light splashes across us
we smile into the computer screen at each another.
this is us right now.
light and dark is many things.
the joy to lift the heavy weight of loss.
the laughter to dry the tears.
the life that is behind and the life that is ahead.
the ocean breeze and salty skin bringing dreams to truth.
the see saw perfectly balanced in mid-air.

when i go

“i know i felt the ocean tickle the earth’s sandy shores
but changes come and we all know that we can’t, we can’t stop them
but I hold these memories and I will never drop them…”

we are driving east.
farewell austin.
i’ll carry you all in my heart
always and forever.

~~~

“hold this heart when I go
sing my song when I go
sing it loud when I go
sing it proud when I go.”