what were we talking about? oh-yeah, mid afternoon blood sugar dives....

Dr. Him:  Try a serving of brown rice at lunch. See if that gives you less waves and cuts back the migraines.

Me: I find rice suspicious.

Dr. Him: Historically rice has been a peaceful grain.

Me: Ergot's.

Dr. Him: You are afraid of getting ergot's poisoning? 

Me: No, I was just dispelling the myth that rice is benign. 

Dr. Him: Ergot's aside, what then is your personal issue with rice?

Me: Rice looks like worms and it freaks me out.

Dr. Him:  What is that from Poltergeist? 

Me: Young Sherlock Holmes, Ghost Ship, Lost Boys,...it's not just me.

Dr. Him:  Okay let me check something for you.  Right, it says if you are in a B horror film do not go upstairs, open that one door at the end of the hall, go in the basement, climb a ladder to the attic, shower or otherwise disrobe, swim out to a floating platform, have sex with a camp counselor, or eat rice.  If however you are living in reality it is okay to do all of activities listed above.  

Dr. Him: For clarification you should focus on the eating rice part of that statement.

Dr. Him: For further clarification I not advocating ladder climbing or inappropriate sexual relations. 

Dr. Him: Nor am I asking you do to disrobe.  Hello? 

Dr. Him: Why are you not typing back? You're laughing at me aren't you? I'm going to go now...

pause

I needed a moment to myself to think before joining the party.  

A minute alone to breathe.  

A second to feel something a little different. 

A blink of an eye to see. 

A safe place to stand and listen.

Murals from: Urban Gallery VI, Drawn Together, 2013 

Neighborhood House

view point

this is how i see gymnastics

i can't help it

this shot is from an inter squad meet 

that woman in the foreground is the judge

the man beside her the big head coach

that kid all alone out there is not playing soccer....

today i am not a good gym mom

just a mom

today....oh this sport! 

i can't say what i want to say i can only share this photo of a little girl trapped inside the body of an athlete

ps great job today, baby!

slow.very.very.slow.

 I woke up at six and was out in the garden pulling tomato cages by seven.  By eight the rest of the house was up.  Beach eating cereal her least favorite breakfast food watching PBS cuddled under a blanket said, “Everyday should be like this.” It seemed a bit odd. “Why," I asked, "what makes today so special?”  “I don’t know there seems to be lots of time in today.”

untitled, mlb 11/10/13

Walk away with me

Into the land of dust fairies

Down the path and out of sight

Join me in the shelter of tall touching trees

Among the drops of sun gleaming off the river

Walk away with little one

Let us pretend we are never going back

Only on

Take the unknown for a playmate

And fade into the glowing hours of dusk

Walk away with me 

Just one more time

Lay down a string of gentle childhood steps beside mine

Before you grow too old and too wise to follow

Before you must take your own lead

Walk away with me

So you will always have these days to remember

Slow pictures of my love for you

Warm, walking, wonder.

The sounds of our footprints will fade but our time together here was well spent

  

This how you return a RedBox movie in style, 

taking a long slow walk the river path.

r and b farm obit, good-bye Ghost

 Beach's single surviving quail nicknamed Ghost passed away in the snowy dark coldness of a November morning proving artificial warmth isn't enough to save a tiny soul.  Ghost died of isolation.  For this little one it was always just a matter of time.

RIP

the most beautiful season

I looked at my child, sitting, coloring, sandwiched between the other children doing the same at the small table set up for them.  Small chairs, a basket of colored crayons, bright white sheets of paper, day of the dead art exploding around them like brilliant indoor fireworks.  I noticed something I don’t often think about anymore; my child is so white. And a question hit me, I wonder what it is like for her to be raised here as a minority? 

In a valley settled by Mormon Pioneers, I was raised on the upper east side of the city. The only diversity I knew was an occasional variation in the length of mower settings for the front lawns. In my bed at night when the desert air was wet enough to carry the sound of the trains off the valley floor up the mountain benches I could hear the horns calling.  Beautiful music coming from trains made up of many different colored cars.  I would fall asleep dreaming of them.    

Eight years after moving our family over the tracks WEST, my oldest child fell in love with the children of the Grove, the neighborhood river north of our homestead.  She works down here, west of the city that is Salt Lake, in the after school program of a title one school.  She posts photo’s of her in a sea of warm little faces.  Kids with a ray of toasted caramel skin.  

Both my daughters are exceptionally fair, Irish Pale.  I am dark, my hair, my eyes, even my skin. My daughters are like snowflakes in autumn.    

         

 We have found a beautiful life here. 

A world full of color, in the longest autumn.

The most beautiful of all the seasons.

in the woods with you, mlb

I had a dream I was in the woods with you.  

Light flickers between the black barked trees like broken film.  The trail littered with aspects of a perfect Autumn, downed branches waiting, clumps of wet grass clinging, and you.  

In the woods.  

And me. 

I think of how long it has been since this has happened.  I think of how tired I am of holding on to you like a river hanging to the misty edge of departed rain.  But there in the woods of a dream I could smell you.  I could pretend to let go the leash of the past freeing the demon dogs to hunt elsewhere for awhile.  In the shadow light beneath fluttering yellow leaves of spades I could feel the weight of the way you don’t touch me; it is a carefulness other men don’t know I need.  
If I listened beyond the sound of our breath I could hear the dying echo of the words you spoke that day on the edge of the real woods.  Standing on the banks of a real river; the words I denied us, despite their truth.  I thought I was protecting us, I don't know anymore.  Your lost words fall in the dream woods as tiny gray stones tossed into a river.  And in my dream, in the woods with you I was running, the wind was warm, the air soft, your hand offered out to me, and we were together although I never once could see your face.  

I would have stayed asleep forever to stay there with you. 

mlb, 11/01/13