A mother's meditation on another senseless shooting

Please, God, should we ever be in the wrong place at the wrong time,

caught in the chaos of someone's not-right mind and broken heart

let my body be the shield 

that muscles between the harm and my child

let my quick-thinking

wedge us into safe corners

let me muster all of my swiftness to run

and strength to carry

my child and me into the light of day

where people who can help 

will be standing and hoping

where the hearts of a nation

will be pounding and praying 

And please, God, if my son stands

in a moment of terror alone

wrap him in the palm of your hands

and send him to me as soon as you can

For all the mothers who have shared this prayer

to their own gods and higher powers and unknown universes,

steady our breaths and palpitations

into one beat, one thought

that hums loud enough and low enough 

to blanket the mothers who have lost 

sons and daughters and partners and their own lives

who have frantically searched through crowds

who have been covered in someone's blood

who have never healed from the gaping hole

that it must be to watch a child die.

Please, God, envelope us today

so that the love is greater than the pain

and our worlds are turned back on their axes

and our babies are safe in their beds again.

Click to read more ...

Looking for love: in the crazy heat

We take it for granted, that we will turn the crank and water will will spray forth, keeping the gardens outside our locked doors and sealed windows lush and tended. We never question that the water will be pooling in the wrapped-tight hose waiting for us to decide it is time.

But really, water is a far more precious commodity than we are willing to admit. We pay attention to melting glaciers carrying abandoned polar bear pups for a few minutes while a photo passes by our Facebook news feed, or click to donate a few dollars to an organization that digs wells that women and children walk miles and miles to for fresh water each day. But we let the faucets run longer than we should while we are brushing our teeth and roll our eyes with impatience when the dishwasher breaks and soak in hot tubs and pools for hours without wondering when the water falls will slow to a trickle.

Isn't it the same with love, most of the time? We need to believe it will always be there, at the ready for when we are ready.

In the middle of a frozen tundra of a winter, when we've just shoveled the walk for the third time in one week or pushed a car out of a foot of snow, we don't think, "Hey, I will sure will be grateful to water the grass when all this melts." When we are alone or leaving someone or standing on the precipice of an marriage that's ending, it is just as tricky to remind ourselves, "Weren't we lucky to have every resource we could possibly want during that one divine summer? Wasn't the water always pooling at our feet, always cooling us off, always making the space around us full of life?"

I saw this hose, heart-shaped and waiting in a neighbor's yard, during a day that hung with humidity. The air felt oppressive. The flowers looked beautiful from far off, but up close were browned at the edges and longing for a drink. Just beyond the frame of the photo, the grass was worn away in brown spots, charred by too many days in a row of record highs.

Where is the water? I wondered that, noting the sprinkler.  Don't the people know it's time for a shower?

But maybe the people were waiting, holding on to each precious drop, holding out for a break in the heat to tend to the peonies and shrubs and ground cover. Maybe they didn't want to waste any of it at all.

Or maybe the sprinkler stood still and silent and waterless out of neglect. Was someone ignoring the garden?

Could it be that the lawn had already been tended to and all signs of being watered were already evaporated? Maybe the soil underneath was saturated while the petals were turning away from the sun.

There are many possibilities for this little corner of the city, just as there are many for the tiny corners of our hearts. There is an ocean of love out there somewhere, but we have to be wise about how much we let spill from the bucket, how much we take it for granted, how much we expect of it when the world feels lazy and overwhelmed and parched. We have to appreciate it, the love, quenching our thirst and making beautiful things grow up and giving us bodies to sink into and float around and bathe in.

I love that little plastic heart sprinkler winding through the grass. It stands for so much more than it seems.

Click to read more ...

Bikini waxing and manscaping: Explaining hair removal to my kid

The news was on — the real news, not the morning-drive radio showmy son believes in his heart of hearts is the news — and somehow the story of the salon offering self-esteem-dripping bikini wax specials to teens had just leaked to the station. I was standing in the bathroom, hair wrapped in a flat-iron, and too far away to flip it off in time. I also know from lots of experience that the quicker I hustle to switch a station or song, the more I call attention to it and the more questions there are. I stood silently and still. Maybe, for once, the moment would pass.

But, of course, it didn’t. I had a five-minute breather to get ready and to begin believing it wouldn’t be the day when my kid would be exposed to the cold, hard reality of hot wax and unwanted hair. But that was all I got.

“Mommmmmmy,” Lil E said, stretching out my name that told me my reprieve had been stripped clean away. “What is waxing?”

Click here to read my nitty-gritty response on Sassafrass Says So over at Babble Voices. 

Click to read more ...