On the negative nagging voices

I've been a teacher for a really long time. And I know that sometimes, student people will lash out when they're mad about something, and usually, it's the people who are failing your class who are mad at you because you did something that they think made them fail and that they are the ones who didn't put in the effort and they will find whatever thing they think can hurt you to say because they are mostly mad at themselves. And they can almost always, always find that one thing, that thing you yourself know isn't how you are your best. They almost always latch onto the things you're not perfect at, knowing yourself, and the thing you even TOLD them you suck at, and they say, "YOU SUCK BECAUSE OF THIS," and then the rest of that day, the only thing your brain can think of is that one negative, mosquito buzzing in the room voice. 

I am aware of all of these things and yet, I still look. 

Why do we do this? Why does our very "evolved" human brain (for some of us, cause, some of us don't ever hear those voices because they always think they're great... apparently) just latch on to that one mosquito in the room buzzing around saying the mean things? 

I knew better than to look, and I did it anyway: Bluebeard's Bride. Now, my brain is full of one noisy mosquito. 

Yes. You win, person who just wanted to be mean. Now, next time, maybe do better on your work so you don't have to do that to someone who tried their freakin' best and is actually a human being.

Dear future students, future review people, future nice folks in the world: if you like something a teacher has done, go to the places and make the nice comments. They sometimes drown out the mean ones, and usually, the only people who do make comments are the mad ones. 

Comic for reference.  

Advice

I think about the power of laughter sometimes.
The joy that flows through the grief, the bubbling
forbidden hysteria of the laugh at the wrong moment. 

Once, when I was very young, in a symphonic band concert,
a friend and I caught that laughter, deep in our chests, swelling,
in danger of overflowing, rolling out over the clarinet rows, contagious.

We dared not look at each other, knowing that would be our end, the trigger
for no way back from all of that abundance of joy. Giggles stifled, choking, actually
painful. Her shoulders next to mine shook with the suppression, and I felt tears prickling.

The conductor, his thick mustache bristling, his eyes serious and focused, looked towards us,
there on the back row, the last row, the third chairs, the deep bass line of the clarinets,
and we knew we had to pull the pain into ourselves, keep that joy within, clutch it. 

Deep breaths now, focus on the music, think of things other than whatever was
tickling our minds to the abundance of deep taboo within, that sense of the
things you aren't allowed to feel. This was serious business, this music. I

think of how we stared, tearing up, deep to stop our joy. Remember
the sense of refusal to be broken, of never letting that joy go, of 
holding it within until it hurts, sharing the unshared moments. 

And I remember:

they don't like it when we laugh at them. 

So keep doing it. Don't let them win. 

Let the laughter roll out of you, until,

weak and spent, you have to sit down. 

Regroup. Gather within yourself

all of that old, held in taboo. All

of those emotions you weren't 

supposed to feel. And share

them until they know we know. 

Let it out. Let the years of

joy roll out of you until

your hope, your love,

your beauty —  is a weapon —  point it. 

At their weaknesses. 

KAW 2024

Art licensed through Adobe Stock & edited by me....

Losing a friend, ADHD and Grief

I think something we don't talk about, almost ever, is the life fact of losing a friend. Not to a dramatic event, necessarily, but sometimes even the slow loss of fading connections. In my life, I've lost a LOT of friends when I was young because we moved so often. I've lost a few to distance, and a few to dramatic events that had an impact both in the short and long term, as well. 

Sometimes when I get those security question that ask you things like "the street your first home was on" or "your first grade teacher's name" or especially "your childhood best friend" I think-- who knows those things? I know people do, but it's definitely not me. I moved regularly as a child, sometimes with some notice, often without any notice at all. My family's single mother, excessive poverty lifestyle was anything but stable in those ways. I always have to choose one or two of the "security questions" that have to do with things that are less about your early childhood..... It makes me a little sad to realize how many of those usually ten questions I can't even come close to answering. (Also this is part of a discussion I think I'll eventually write about CPTSD, as well, but not today). 

But back to the point-- losing a long term friendship. Sometimes it CAN be a dramatic thing-- a big fight, especially. In our culture, we talk about losing love a lot. You turn on Netflix alone and there are going to be entire categories of movies and TV shows that deal with this. (And this doesn't count the ones based on death, which isn't at all what I'm talking about). So culturally, I don't think we practice the thought of what happens when a friendship ends.  And part of you tells yourself that you're making too much of it. That you shouldn't be this upset. That you're over-reacting. But then part of you KNOWS you're over reacting and can't help it and knows that the over reaction might even make what you dread worse. 

It's hard. It's as brutal as the love relationships. Sometimes I think it's even more brutal because a part of you, at least at some level, expects those love relationships, romance, to not last forever. (And I don't mean marriage-- because that's a different topic entirely). 

So the point is-- being ghosted by someone who you care about, who you think of as a friend, and who you try to reach out to and connect with to let them know -- "hey, this feels really bad; what's going on?" is really, really rough. 

Image from article at this link.

I have a kind of emotional issue with my ADHD called RSD: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria that makes this kind of thing even worse. Because look, I ALWAYS worry if you don't text me back right away. I can handle it if it's a few hours. But if you leave me on read for weeks at a time, and there's no real reason I can trace it to, I'm definitely certain you hate me and never want to talk to me again, and if I tentatively say "hi" trying to rekindle that chatting and you don't reply, or you reply that you're busy and will get back to me but then NEVER DO, be pretty sure that I am devastated and spending hours thinking about it in a way that would seem stupid to most people. There's a reason why ADHD is an actual disability. It makes life a lot harder in everything, but people will say "don't let it bother you so much; it's not as big of a deal as you think" but hey, look. I want you to know that it IS actually as big of a deal to some people as we think it is. Your neurodivergent friends are definitely upset. And we can't just stop being that way any more than a blind person can just think about it harder and see things better. 

A neurotypical response to something might say "ah well; I'll deal with that when I need to; they're busy; whatever" but trust me, even if it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to you, and even if maybe you think you not talking to them when they've reached out to you is just YOU being busy and not having time to respond-- a certain percentage of us are mourning, deeply, the loss of a friend we trusted. And we don't do trust deep friendships easily, by the way.  

So if you manage to work your way into a trust circle of a person who is very introverted and also has a neurodivergent mind-- please don't ghost them. And know that the amount of times they've reached out to you to try to connect and find out what's up are actually HUGE steps, and even a short "hi, I'll get back to you soon; I'm busy" would go a million miles to let us know it's not the worst case scenario we already have built up. 

Summer Thinking: Meet Your ADHD

I tend to neglect my writing in the summer, which is absurd, because during the school year, I always feel pressured and/or conflicted in my own personal writing. I am helping students write, usually, and the critiques of other writing tend to mean that it's hard to find space for me. And in the summer, I don't teach-- so I don't have those other critiques. So summer should be ultra writing productive. Right? Haha lolz. 

This summer, I am in the first summer where I have been full diagnosed with ADHD and have medication that helps me really, truly, productively FOCUS. It's amazing and infuriating at the same time. Amazing because I can accomplish so very much. Infuriating because I'm almost 55 years old and I've had this disability my entire life and was never diagnosed with it. All those years I struggled to focus on writing my dissertation, on finishing grad school before I had my kids, on my career productivity, on grading and creating things for teaching without doing it all in a rush at the last possible minute. I honestly always just thought I was inherently lazy and the way I am is just the way everyone else is but they just aren't lazy. 

This kind of thinking is incredibly common, turns out. It also turns out that thanks to us GenX moms getting help for our teens and going "hey, I do that too? Maybe I could use some help?" a LOT of moms (and probably dads too) are learning at midlife that they have this issue. That they've been walking in knee deep water their whole life, and that now, with a little help, they can actually walk ON DRY LAND LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. 

Menopause has been my trigger, I think. I think mostly I was able through most of my life to "mask" and be mostly on target. But the hormones and a fuzzy brain from that just made some things SO HARD that I finally admitted that perhaps I could take a look at talking to a psychiatrist, and he was pretty flabbergasted by how intense my issue was and how much I'd accomplished anyway and how much help I deserved to get. 

SO what does that all mean for me as a writer? This summer for me has been incredibly productive, just not for writing. I have done a LOT of spring cleaning (okay, summer cleaning) in my home. I've gotten a bunch of piles of stuff tossed away, cleared out, donated, organized. I "Marie Kondo'd" my house, like yes, yes, yes I did. I do still have ONE area that might not happen because right now my thoughts are turning away from the urgency of "sparking joy" with home decor. But it's still possible I'll get inspired and get the little closet under the stairs done. That might wait 'til Winter Break, though. 

Anyway. I kind of came here thinking I'd write something creative and it took me like 20 minutes to re-secure my account because it had somehow gotten rerouted to some other domain (which like-- how does that even happen? Hackers? And if so, to where? Cause it just seemed glitched, not rerouted and hacked). And then I lost steam and decided to just journal about this huge life issue. 

And now I'm probably done for the day on writing. The rest of summer is already filling up with a bunch of "human maintenance" appointments for me, my kids, and a family member I'm helping out so..... this might be all we get for Summer 24. And you know what? I feel fine with that. 

Trying to Keep Up With Spring

This is less of a creative post but it's kind of me thinking about what it takes to be creative so I'll put it here in the blog no one reads anymore. 

This time of the semester (close to finals) is always kind of tricky, especially in the Spring. I generally try to avoid teaching summer classes, mostly because our contract is for just those Fall to Spring 9 months and summer is "extra." I don't need the extra to live to support my life so if I can let other teachers who DO need the income have that time, then I will. And I'm also kind of happy to have the summer to regroup, to make my inner introvert happy and bored. Happy and bored makes me a much better, less burnt-out teacher again in the Fall. 

But Spring-- Spring we are all a bit tired. Students aren't "NEW" to this anymore, and they maybe aren't quite as rosy and enthusiastic about things like "learning to write a research paper with MLA sources!!" Now with parenthetical citations!! (To be fair, it's been parenthetical citations for a pretty long time, so it's not really a new thing, but I was going for a vibe there.) 

Not an eclipse. Kinda the night sky; Stars and Moon.  By LoFfofora Licensed via Adobe Stock. Please do not reproduce unless you pay them too. 

And so a week or so ago (it was longer than that really but who is counting) we did Total Eclipse of the Sun activities. Except in Texas, the clouds mostly came out to play and ruin our glimpse of the small dragon who occasionally comes out to take small bites out of our star. It did get a little chilly, the sun went dark for about 30 seconds, the birds caught zoomies and students, who had clustered around the quad and gotten snacks and eclipse glasses, milled about, not sure exactly what to do and a lot disappointed. 

My smallest offspring and I stood on a walkway up a bit higher and watched. A couple of the dual credit high schoolers were also up there and we all peered at the sky to see clouds part, which they did a teeeeeensy bit. Then the eclipse was officially over and we went back to our day. Pretty underwhelming for us, honestly. 

I did really like what my college's student life offices tried to do. They had music blasting, including "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (which we also looked at in my classes.) "New Moon on Monday." Other moon related songs. And when the sun briefly went dark, the campus lights came on and students dutifully "oooooh'd." 

Moving on into this coming week, we are moving into Research Projects. It could go well; it could be difficult. One never really knows. I will get some essays that make me smile and I will grade them and we will do Presentations and then a few weeks from now I will dress up in the cap n gown and traipse in to the cap n gown music and sit there smiling and clapping for the students who have passed their first two years of college and are moving up to the next couple. Some of them will have written Research Projects for me in the past. The dressing up in cap n gown and cheering for students in a milestone is still one of my Favorite Things™.

And so, it is Spring. We might want to fall backwards into piles of cherry blossoms (sort of a reference to this long loved sad poem) and melt into the landscape of our own sorrows. But this is Texas, and we don't have cherry blossoms. So I guess we're just gonna melt into the oncoming heat (coming soon to a small campus near you) and be glad it's not quite summer YET. 

April is National Poetry Month.

We read poems today.
Short ones. In my literature &
composition class. Students, stuck inside on a spring Tuesday,
a day a little mud-luscious, 
listened to Langston Hughes, ee cummings,
Dorothy Parker. Margaret Atwood. Marge Piercy. 

Well. At least some of them listened. Some of the we
focused instead on their phones. Look,
I'm not of the age of the "shakes fist at sky/ this blasted generation" type.
I'm good with the social media. And the dank memes & the culture wars.
But really. These are some good poems. Razzle AND dazzle. 

We
are supposed to be studying tone. As in "don't use that tone with me"
teens.

And also speaker. And voice. We
definitely read some Gwendolyn Brooks. And I told them how, when I
first learned that poem, in high school, I had never heard a real poet read a real poem. 

Not really. How would you even do that in 1987?

Can you imagine? 

And the revelation when I finally did hear Brooks emphasize that 

WE
at the end of every line. Jesus. What a voice. Singing sin and gin.

But, even then
I did get to hear music.
MTV, radio.
Oh I loved me a good pop song. Lived for it, really.
Cassette tapes carefully curated,
pause pressed to stop the DJ from talking over the song. (Why did they
do that? Anyway?) We
would scramble, and the DJ would talk anyway. 

I remember calling in, once, to dedicate "Keep on Loving You" by REO Speedwagon
to a boy with curly dirty-blonde hair. "To Scott from Kim." The thrill
when I heard the DJ read it out in a long list of

to xxxx

from xxxx's

(I don't even know
if he heard it.) I also did (not)
          keep on loving him. We
          were doomed from the start,
          I guess. 

So anyway. Back (as it always goes) to the students. 

The room is always a bit dim because the
PowerPoint you need to keep
(this generationanygenerationme) engaged
doesn't really show up in full light
using the ancient projector. Dim.  
And they're probably a little sleepy. 
And April is still (as far as I can tell)
the cruelest month. 

And they smiled when appropriate and eddieandbill and bettyandisbel 
are still always as charming as they've always been (which
if you ask Dorothy Parker was never). They
seemed sad at Piercy's Barbie Doll. 

And I ran out of lines of poetry to share. And I let them go early. 
How's that for a tone? 

KAW 4/2/24

I'm LITERALLY on the moon.

That title is not poor literary device use. We tried in January of 2024 but the second time in February was the charm and it worked!! My two creative anthologies I curated and my own short stories in other anthologies finally landed on the moon!!  

I honestly don't know which thing I'm more proud of-- the short story about space dragons, the shapeshifter story, or the two anthologies I curated to publish dozens of intersectional feminist writers, along with a dear friend. And I was also published in an anthology with a really weird and wonderful story about an undead cyborg girl... inspired by a James Tiptree story called "The Girl Who Was Plugged in." Regardless-- they are all on the moon in an incredible digital archive. SQUEAL!

Here is news about the project!

Things I Have Done Today Besides The Work I Should Really Be Doing

1. Create sample Mentor Text PowerPoints for a student project. 
   
2. Chat with fabulous co-workers about upcoming department issues.
3. Re-register my child for a different class in the Spring after hearing the previous class would not do. For reasons.  
4. Go chat with my club mentees and admire their recent remodeling of the club meeting room. 
5. Re-read all of my currently read work emails. 
6. Walk over to the cafeteria to get milk for a coffee. Said milk was almost 4.00
7. Complain about said milk being almost 4.00 when I could have bought a gallon for that price.
8. I forget what eight was for. 
9. Make a coffee/mocha. 
10. Drink the coffee/mocha. 
11. Briefly contemplate dusting my office, but that fits the "work I should be doing" category so... nah. 
    
12. Change the October calendar to November (checks date) 16 days late. 
13. Think about ADHD. 
14. Send an email to my boss about how cold it is in this building. 
15. Think about going out to my car to get a warmer sweater. 
16. Fail to go out to my car to get a warmer sweater. 
17. Daydream about course syllabuses for the upcoming Spring semester. 
18. Suddenly realize I COULD be actually working on a REALLY WORK project and hence put off "Work I Should Really Be Doing" for another while, but still be actually working. 
19. Do a victory dance, then look for photos for reference in stock imagery collection where I have 100+ credits.
20. Add one more thing to the list so it's an even number because I'm not a monster. Hit Publish. 

Texas Public Radio Events

 Oh yeah!! I've been on Texas Public Radio a few times since I last did a blog entry. The videos get a little edited from the live show; a lot of the host and co-host "banter" between stories doesn't stay in the final YouTube version, so you really should try to come to a live version. They're super fun! And not very expensive (and you know someone who might be able to get you in free if you live in San Antonio, by the way.) 

Oh, two of these are not really kid safe-- at least the ones with the warning labels on them. So watch it only in a SFW setting. It's really just some grown up language in a couple of them (curse words, and a little rated PG16 or so) but if you're sensitive to language, don't ignore that disclaimer text. 

For this one in October 2023, themed "Specter" (ghosts and spooky things) I was the co-host. It was pretty fun, and lots of really spooky stories. 

And then there's this one, where I was actually the HOST host. Not co. It was so fun!! I am not looking to take over Tori's gig but I really appreciated being able to do this. The theme of this was "Rescued." 

And another spooky co-hosting gig, "Ghosted," in October 2022.

Even though I find myself awkward in videos, I'm so psyched that I've found this community. I want to keep doing this for a long time, as long as Tori (the coolest host ever) will keep having me around. 

Old Bones

The ancient lady (who feeds the feral street cats) is out 

in the yard 

again this morning. The sky is a gray purple touch of pink and colors you would say were lies, Photoshopped. Unreal. 

The cats hide, not ready for breakfast. They yawn and stretch,

lick matted fur, bat at rivals. 

She is Baba Yaga without her chicken legged house, stuck in the middle of an urban block, and the cats do not appreciate, do not even notice her magic. 

They meow “too early. Go back to bed, woman.” 

But she doesn’t understand their feral language. 

They don’t care enough to understand hers. 

She is pouring water into bowls, crouching low to fill

each, coiling her snakinggreen water hose around her thin legs. It tries to trip her,

catch her unaware, and 

she ignores its secret, hidden malice

not yet tripped up.

Her sweater is red and thin, just like her bones, in danger of unraveling. Not enough calcium. (Babies take calcium to make bones, stealing away parts

to form their parts they will later disregard as they crouch low, kick, stretch). 

The cats steal other bits too, time, uncaring.) Perhaps this loss of bones happened to the lady with the red sweater, knitted out of time out of fate, Mme. DeFarge’s skein, judging all. 

Her bones

worn thin from children who never visit, so she fills the gap with feral 

cats. Who also

do not call 

but lounge, arrogant and needy, circling her,

in a long driveway where no one ever parks a car. 

Fall 23

Winter Light

In the early thin, pale part of the day (we can't just call it morning, can we?)

my ghosts surrounded me. Today. Not only today but-- today.

I was sleeping (or rather, trying to and failing), turning over, avoiding the thoughts--
circling in my head of loss, some decades old. Restlessness found me, flung me against the gray light creeping into the window. 

There was the college roommate, responding to a flyer with Queen Elizabeth's face, and sharing
Indian food with me for the first time (with a coupon pulled out of one of those books we used to buy). Her sadness filled too much space.

My mother, of course smoking a cigarette, drinking her coffee with a few cubes of ice
(because she wanted to drink it now, dammit, and it was too hot). A thing that makes so much sense, now that I am older and less patient. 

My sister, annoyed to be here, arranging her plate so that none of the food
touched each other, and then systematically emptying it one item at a time. I wanted to ask her if she had been ready, was afraid, a lot, of the answer. 

My niece, silent, way too soon, because she is definitely not ready to talk about it yet.

My grandmother wasn't there because she definitely has better things to do in the morning,
although she's probably somewhere turning on the heat, feeding cats swarming around her feet. She is somewhere else calling them beggars and laughing at their yowling. 

I would say my father was there but he never really was, was he? 

Another father, the "in-law," who was part of my life for so much longer and in a much more
"there" way, would have wanted to take a drive, munching on chocolate, singing along with the radio. Snapping his fingers, he had places to go. 

Unlike the ghosts in mythology, they did not linger, pale versions of themselves seeking out heat, seeking out a little blood so they could sip life again for a moment, called back from the greyness of whatever is there when we aren't dreaming (or failing to dream). There were no pleas to bring back messages. The only message there was, I guess-- the memory of a warning of life being a loaded gun-

until it no longer is--

KAW December 22 

(partly inspired by Emily Dickinson's poems, There's a Certain Slant of Light and My Life Had Stood)

This is just to say: An Action Plan

I have assessed
the grades
that were in
the spreadsheet. 

and which
you were probably
trying to strengthen. 

Forgive me.
they were achieved--
so indeterminate,
and so consistent. 

************************

(What I do in department meetings while also absolutely paying attention. It really does actually help me focus.... hello ADHD.)

************************

Because I could not reflect the goals
they summarized for me--
the meeting held but just
our Team
and Institutionality.

We slowly spoke-- we knew no gleam--
and I had written Notes.
My outline and my planning, too,
for Administrative pleas. 

We passed the gates, where students strove,
at writing--in the Spring--

We passed the margin of error--
we passed the previous plan. 

Or rather-- it passed us.
The date showed--
the classes planned and done.
Our language, only seen. 

We paused before a Goal that seemed,
a lesson, in the sand,
The Learning scarcely lost,
the meeting-- in the room. 

Since then--'tis Hours, and yet,
feels like it was a Day.
I first surmised the curriculum,
felt an Eternity. 

I actually wrote one more that's even better but I might have to save that one for potential publication. 

Nostalgia beats gaslighting

It wasn’t the single-family happy to go out for a fancy expensive Sunday brunch after church pancakes and mimosas and Bloody Marys with an entire fried chicken as a garnish you remember from the popular TV shows and social media.

It was a diner in a bad neighborhood that smelled like greasy fried potatoes topped with chili and tomatoes, melted American cheese, both crispy bacon AND ham. It was sitting close together in booths while other people waited for a table and tired waitresses on their fourth double shift in a week in the middle of the night after you’d been out to a smoky dance club and you just needed that fat and carbs. It was laughing and thinking of how tired you’d be in the morning at work but not caring because you were young. It was a waitress who called you "hun" and frowned when you put in your order. But who you tipped well anyway.

It was the middle of a Florida military tourist town chock full of fifties-era beat up brick ranch houses in our run-down rental area and it was needing a better landlord but not getting one. It was no central air conditioner. It was sand fleas next door and a kitten that disappeared in the middle of the day, probably stolen by a neighbor. Neighbors who stomped around their upper floor aggressively.

It was a neighborhood of old Victorian houses gentrified and wealthy right down the street from one of the most poverty stricken ones in town. It was a landlord who tried to bully you at every chance he got, who lied to get the police to come into your apartment when you weren't there.

It was potholed and tall pine tree lined streets, not like the towns I saw on TV where everyone had a dad and a weekend family dinner table with some kind of nice meal and family talking about their days, sharing happy memories, family with a mom AND a dad, sisters AND brothers, and people genuinely caring about the question “how was your day?” 

It meant walking for hours with a sister in the middle of the night because we didn't have a car. It meant doing all those things together that we never did again, surviving the unspeakable. Until that day when one of us didn't survive it.

And I'll be damned if I don't miss it in some ways. And would never want it back again in others.

It was truly complicated.

Fairy Tale: The Rain

Story Prompt:

Image credit:  grandfailure, licensed via Adobe Stock. Do not copy. 

When the rain started, the world was dry and hot. The weary plants surged upward at first, grateful, basking in the needed moisture. They turned green, smelled clean. Children splashed in the puddles happy, kicked water on their parents, who laughed.

But the sprinkly storms turned heavy. The heat became moist, like a laundry room. The rain no longer refreshed anyone; people stopped splashing playfully in puddles and instead, began to fill sandbags with mucky brown grit. The grit got into their teeth, their eyes, stained their clothing and began to fill everything.

After a while, the domesticated flowers drooped from too much water. Their leaves grew yellow, then brown at the edges, then, black and moldy, and finally, turned to mush.

It kept raining.

Vines dormant since the age of dinosaurs came out of hiding and started to grow again. Tiny green shoots, at first, but then they covered outbuildings, eclipsing the formerly square shapes, then the vines crept into the yards, the parking lots. Everywhere. Nothing had sharp edges anymore-- it was all soft, green, masses of tendrils.

The tendrils grabbed at children's ankles as they ran past, on their way through the downpour into the rapidly growing blurry in the landscape houses. The summer sun was never bright-- everything was dim, dark. Skies forgot how to be blue. 

These old/new vines had beautiful, giant flowers that smelled heavenly to the small birds and insects-- who hovered near until they were were snapped up, eaten by the flowers, slowly digested in slimey juices. The lucky survivors learned to stay away, hungry bellies empty.

Still, it rained.

People forgot what lawnmowers looked like, left them to rust in the yards. The gasoliney smelling machines began to look like old art projects as the vines covered them, turned them into topiary of an ancient world. New indoor lives were found, forgetting the heat of summer, the heat of lemonade and ice cream and beaches and dry sand that sticks to the backs of legs.

The rain did not stop.

It dribbled. Drizzled. Poured. Torrents came down and then became gushers. Ditches filled up, overflowed. Sidewalks became small rivers. Doghouses floated away, some with the dogs, forgotten, perched on top of them, howling.

New words were invented for the types of rain, 100 different ways to describe texture, smell, density of water.

And the water and green kept flowing, flowing, flowing, until people forgot the words for "dry" or "dusty" and even "desert." Forgot those places ever existed.

***************************

Note: in this summer's outrageous heat, this feels like wishful thinking a bit, even with the slightly apocalyptic nature.....

Carry Your Hearts: Erin & Mandi's wedding speech

Good evening! I’m Kim, Erin’s exceptionally awesome aunt, and I’m here to tell you all of his deepest, darkest secrets. 

No, I’m just kidding about the dark secrets part… the rest is true obviously.  

Erin & Mandi, Congratulations on finding each other. That’s a much harder thing to do than most people realize. In all of the world, so many things had to go right for you to meet, for that first date to go well, for the world to keep cooperating up ‘til now. You did it! 

As you may know, Erin & I lost his mom & his sister in 2020/21 and that wasn’t easy. I can say with all my heart that Judy and Sara would both be so proud of you and how you’ve handled things in the last couple of years. They would also both offer to fight anyone who stood in your way, and if you ever met either of them, you would know that would have been pay per view worthy. 

A photo I took of the memorial table with the shot of tequila I bought for my missing family members.
Judy & Sara, y'all should have been at my table making snarky comments, dammit. 

Your life has been pretty tough in a lot of ways but you’ve persevered and I am as proud as I can be of you—getting the good job, (taking my and your Uncle’s helpful advice that you should definitely take the leap of faith and step out of your comfort zone.) Not messing up too badly with the lovely bride you’re standing next to now. Again—you did it! 

I knew as soon as I met Mandy that we’d be here today. I could just see that look—you know the look. I’ll tell you a quick embarrassing story: your Uncle Andrew & I have been married almost 30 years now, but you were there from the start. When I first met Andrew and I was trying to play it cool, we took you and your sister roller skating. You were in the back seat and after a lot of giggling, you asked him “Are you gonna be my new dad” and Sara poked you and said “No silly, he would be our UNCLE” and I tried to melt into the seat. I didn’t want him to think I had set you up to ask that question but at the same time, it was pretty good question I also wanted to hear him answer. 

Now I’m going to give you an important piece of advice, and I’m standing in for all of those family members up there who would be hanging out at the back at the open bar if they were here. 

Someday you will be able to stand up at one of YOUR younger relatives’ weddings and tell them you’ve been married three decades if you take my advice: Pick the one trait in each other that you dislike the most. (Mandi—it’s probably something to do with his tendency to lounge around shirtless, hair unbrushed, watching the Cowboys lose...And I know Mandi doesn’t have any flaws so you’re obviously going to have to make those up…. )

But still, take that flaw and decide to love it. This thing they do (like chewing too loud or watching terrible Netflix shows and bingeing on nacho cheese popcorn or whatever) this thing makes them the person you love. They would be someone else without that… this one trick will guarantee you will stay happy. You still might want to smack them, but you will still, at the end of that day, love them and find joy in that one annoying trait. And it’s not always easy, and some days the hard stuff will feel much bigger than the good stuff. But it’s always going to swing back to the good, as long as you can remember this feeling of happiness you are feeling right now. Store this in your heart and pull it out whenever you need to, and that is what will make this all work, even when it doesn’t feel like it possibly can. Close your eyes and time travel back to right now, and trust your heart. 

My favorite from the photos Mandi has uploaded so far. I stole it and I'm not sorry. THIS is the moment I mean.
THIS ONE RIGHT HERE. 

So speaking of storing things in your heart, this is the part of the speech where you get the “Aunt is a literature teacher” poetry, and at the end of this short verse, I’ll raise my glass and toast you both. This is a poem that wraps up all of my brilliant advice: 

Erin, Mandy: congratulations, you did it!  

a poem that wraps up all of my brilliant advice: