we give each other books for every birthday.
a tradition i love; a celebration of our deep lives, the inner ones--
how well we know each other, celebrating that
with titles like, the art of eating in
gift from the sea
favorites, sometimes picked up last-minute
wrapped in nothing but an ann taylor bag
last year on your birthday kaylie was wearing that shirt
pregnant as you are.
pregnant with a baby.
when i feel like i'm just pregnant with possibility--
ready to explode in a creative tornado
if i didn't have any homework to attend to.
still my pregnancy grows,
fed by light of film, metering and clicking
writing ridiculous poetry
reading more natalie goldberg
and this pregnancy i'm not off-limits from one single thing
no do-not-eat list perches on my fridge
just wedding announcement photos
I've taken
and feel proud of,
not unlike a baby child
i'd grown myself.
..................................
today is my dad's birthday celebration,
tomorrow the actual day.
sometimes i feel strange that it's alright to move things around when they don't fit your schedule, like valentine's day and birthdays.
he's perpetually 35 to me, the dad in my home videos running the camera while i screw up the courage to run through the sprinkler in my too-pink bathing suit.
he's perpetually a seminary teacher with lots of seminary teacher friends,
and i spy on the grown-up parties they have, with lots of laughing and finger food and it was like an aquarium of fun because i could press my nose to the window and look through without anyone noticing, observe and have a private smile with myself when my dad laughed so hard he coughed and wheezed.
he's perpetually that dad. i haven't wrapped my head around a dad who has two sets of married children, kids-in-laws, and is 49.
as i celebrate the changes--the new pregnancies, jobs, transitions to vegetarianism--i still ache for that too-pink bathing suit, hand in hand with my brother trying to convince me to run through the sprinkler on the simplest of summer days. i still wince at my list of responsibilities and wonder if i'll ever wake up accepting them with wide open hands. i still live in nostalgia and simultaneously run away as fast as i can so i can be the one moving on.
a tradition i love; a celebration of our deep lives, the inner ones--
how well we know each other, celebrating that
with titles like, the art of eating in
gift from the sea
favorites, sometimes picked up last-minute
wrapped in nothing but an ann taylor bag
last year on your birthday kaylie was wearing that shirt
pregnant as you are.
pregnant with a baby.
when i feel like i'm just pregnant with possibility--
ready to explode in a creative tornado
if i didn't have any homework to attend to.
still my pregnancy grows,
fed by light of film, metering and clicking
writing ridiculous poetry
reading more natalie goldberg
and this pregnancy i'm not off-limits from one single thing
no do-not-eat list perches on my fridge
just wedding announcement photos
I've taken
and feel proud of,
not unlike a baby child
i'd grown myself.
..................................
today is my dad's birthday celebration,
tomorrow the actual day.
sometimes i feel strange that it's alright to move things around when they don't fit your schedule, like valentine's day and birthdays.
he's perpetually 35 to me, the dad in my home videos running the camera while i screw up the courage to run through the sprinkler in my too-pink bathing suit.
he's perpetually a seminary teacher with lots of seminary teacher friends,
and i spy on the grown-up parties they have, with lots of laughing and finger food and it was like an aquarium of fun because i could press my nose to the window and look through without anyone noticing, observe and have a private smile with myself when my dad laughed so hard he coughed and wheezed.
he's perpetually that dad. i haven't wrapped my head around a dad who has two sets of married children, kids-in-laws, and is 49.
as i celebrate the changes--the new pregnancies, jobs, transitions to vegetarianism--i still ache for that too-pink bathing suit, hand in hand with my brother trying to convince me to run through the sprinkler on the simplest of summer days. i still wince at my list of responsibilities and wonder if i'll ever wake up accepting them with wide open hands. i still live in nostalgia and simultaneously run away as fast as i can so i can be the one moving on.
1 comment:
This made me smile, you know?
I like our tradition, too.
Also your "ridiculous" poetry.
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