“oh, please don’t grieve for days that fell like leaves.” (ben gibbard)

(purple bike. photograph by Yael Ben-Zion.)

The word describing how I most often feel on Sundays is parched. It’s hard to explain-I put a lot of pressure on every day to be shiny and life altering, and by the time I get to the day that everyone seems to fill with brunch and laziness or brunch and running errands, I’m completely exhausted.

I have a terrible relationship with relaxation, so I cleaned, and because  I like to make lists, here’s what’s on the table next to my bed right now: quarters, hairclips, coffee mugs, a hairbrush, a glass jar with scissors, pencils and paintbrushes in it, my passport, eyeglass cleaner, a ceramic bowl I bought in Amherst last year that holds barrettes, beads and hair elastics, two bottles of pills, a picture of me in my prom dress, deodorant, squares of stiff colored paper, my phone, my yellow scarf headband with the purple polka dots, a pile of pictures cut from magazines, pieces of cardboard stamped with the names of my characters.

Additionally: Made and ate a deliciously buttery, super burnt grilled cheese sandwich. Reaffirmed the fact that Zabar’s coffee is infinitely better and cheaper than Starbucks. Thought about writing a story just about the evolution/variety of someone’s nicknames. Took a long walk listening to Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, laughing to myself and looking possibly insane. A lot of people seem to be pregnant, in a hurry to get somewhere, grocery shopping, dressed in fancy clothes, walking their dogs, going to the gym, sitting on benches, wearing hats, and wondering if it will rain.

poetic dispatch: margaret atwood

 

Spelling

My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.

*

I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.

*

A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
There is no either / or.
However.

*

I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.

Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.

A word after a word
after a word is power.

*

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.

This is a metaphor.

*

How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.

 

Saturday, 8.30-10.00 am

(Amherst, MA. photo by me.)

Today feels like it has been three days. I’m going to be writing this up more thoroughly for the Forward, but in the meantime, here’s an overview.

At 730 am, I was on the train, listening to a Tablet podcast episode and trying to not spill my coffee. I was at Planned Parenthood by 830, wearing a blue smock and opening the door.

The protestors showed up by 9, which apparently they do on the first Saturday of every month. There were probably 45 of them, with crosses and rosaries and a bullhorn and even a violin, chanting Hail Marys over and over. (I can probably recite it now. Thanks?) Also, there were some dudes from Bikers for Life, walking around with flyers. The whole point of an escort is to get people who need to get into the clinic into the clinic. Sometimes, that means going over to the person telling a woman she’s about to murder her baby and helping her extract herself from the lecture. Other times, it just means making eye contact and opening the door.

People who live in the neighborhood stopped to chat with us, we petted their dogs, answered their questions about the protestors. A guy in baggy shorts with a camera told us we were rad. Women and men went into the clinic and came out. Sometimes, men went in with women and came out alone, asking us where to get food or coffee. One of the Bikers for Life kept saying, ‘It’s such a nice day. Isn’t it a nice day?’

When I left at 10.15, the protestors were kneeling on the ground, their hands clasped in prayer. For a second, I remembered being eight years old and seeing my mother light Shabbat candles for the first time, ever. I put my hands together, fingers pointed up to the sky. “Don’t do that,” my mother said. “That’s not what we do.”