The Late Arrival

Every night, a million words hover and swirl around my head before my eyes close. They blink in and out, alternating in bold whites and varying shades of gray -- as if in competition against one another. The competition goes on for what seems like hours, and by the time my lids fall like lead, I can never tell which word finally prevails. I guess that's why people who can pick out one single word to encompass New Year's resolutions, hopes, dreams and themes amaze me. There are just too many words. At least for me there are. The last Thursday of the year, I went through the usual morning motions: made the bed, brushed my teeth, refreshed the dog's water dish and poured a cup of coffee with just enough cream so the color matched my skin. I sneaked a cigarette and, coffee in one hand, phone in the other, sat on the porch despite a biting wind that came with morning rain. Words, in list form, blew in and out with cold blasts of air, and I fanned them away in favor of th

It's a girl, mom. We had a girl. my husband sniffled as he told his mom the good news. She replied Are you gonna call her Pearl?  My mother-in-law is an educated woman with a wicked sense of humor. She knew it was the 61st anniversary of Pearl Harbor, so yeah: pretty funny. I giggled at that and felt joyous...and also empty. As I was hooked up to monitors and watched the nurses wash and clean this new life, I wished that somehow, someway in the middle of all the celebrating and praise that goes on in Heaven, that my mom got the memo about the birth of her granddaughter. But that's not what this is about. We didn't name our daughter Pearl. Instead, we named her after an aunt who after her presence was a fact, was named, and died shortly after. Our kiddo's middle name is her grandmother's -- my mom. I like to think that's from whom her wisdom-beyond-her-years and discernment comes. As I celebrate and weep and get teary over the person I see my kid become;

I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down I get knocked down, but I get up again You're never gonna keep me down I get knocked down -- We get it Chumbawumba, we get it. Even as you read this, you're someplace on your way up again and prepping to get knocked down. Again. Good for you. But that ain't me. I'm trying to get up again and flinching at everything that might possibly could maybe, who knows, knock me down. Again. It's been a long November, a month in which I had planned posts on daily affirmations of thankfulness, perhaps a countdown to my daughter's birthday / my mothering day and maybe a post about the minutes I've been missing my parents since all the way back to 1987. But I got knocked down by a lot of things. The knowing that so many friends of mine were newly missing loved ones in the season of giving thanks that leads into the season of celebrating family and friends. It'

In my brain, I've got folders in which I file stuff. Some are memories that need to be tucked away for safe keeping. Others are within reach for easy retrieval: what meeting is when, what activities my daughter's got going on or when which bills are due. Still, there is another folder that holds memories or experiences that pack too much punch to process immediately, like the few years around my mom's sickness and subsequent death, and more recently, our family's trip to Missouri to retrace the steps of tragedy that eventually led to my great-grandparents' resettling to here in Milwaukee. The most recent addition to that folder is the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's performance of In The Heights. When I went, all I knew is that I needed distance from our bonkers reality as well as its effect on my emotional health. Given that the musical centered on residents of The Heights who are mostly Hispanic/LatinX -- many immigrants or first generation -- the

I'm used to this stretch of rush hour traffic. It takes me along a busy city thoroughfare where you see people who are easily labeled. The Bum: He's the man dressed in two coats, one black out the outside, a purple hoodie on the inside of that, pants that are too loose, stuffed down into boots even as an autumn sun beats down. He peers into the faces of passersby, probably not wanting a handout but just an acknowledgement of his personhood. The Trafficked Woman: She walks slowly up the street, always with a glance behind her. Peering, looking for something or someone. She isn't necessarily scantily clad. But I know her when I see her. The Dude-Bros: These are the fresh-faced college boys who've got the world by the tail. They're usually laughing, entering or exiting a seedy dive bar. Maybe on their way to a baseball game, maybe back to campus, but they're never looking back. Always ahead with chins tilted upward. The Factory Guys: Steel-toed sho

We don't deserve dogs.   I need this tee-shirt. This simple meme really says more about us than it does about Man's Best Friend. Just read the daily news, scan Facebook or Twitter timelines or watch the nightly news, it's clear: we can be awful to each other, to the environment, to animals. Given time and opportunity, we can be pretty much awful to anything. Rather than leave it at people are awful beings, I think its time to go further than saying we don't deserve dogs to  What we need to learn from dogs . 1.     Savor the awkward and the smelly, and roll around in it.   I'm pretty sure Mister Charley has no idea when he and/or his breath is stinky. Beauty thing is that he does not care a whit. He's here, he's stinky, he's sleepy and he ain't going anywhere. And guess what? His comfort in all of the above makes me forget about all of the above, and before you know it, this happens. It was a smelly time, my friends.

Even though my ears couldn't pick up the buzz, I assume in Bug World the panicked hornet's buzzing thundered like a storm as he hovered at a window trying to escape. I, on the other hand, was soaking in the sun while waiting for my friend to arrive for a an all-too rare lunch. She arrived and we hugged. It'd been way too long since we had gotten together. She settled in and soon noticed the panicky hornet buzzing at our floor length window. I saw a look in her eye. Leave him alone and he'll leave us alone  I advised. I can now confess this was an untruth, as a beekeeper friend once said honeybees will only sting if provoked. Yellow-jackets and hornets, on the other hand... We continued chatting unbothered. Until our frustrated hornet friend hovered and lit upon my index finger, and then flitted over to my friend's shoulder. She jumped up and I was like Oooooh...you done messed with the wrong person. Next thing, the hornet's on the gro

Taking a twist today on Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol : I am legally blind. If anything is to be taken from this story, the reader must understand that. Rochelle, have a seat over here. Now what kind of contacts do you wear? I'm prepared for an overdue visit to the optometrist and have brought the boxes for my extended wear contacts with me. I take them out of my purse and proudly hand them to the optician. She sees the prescription, her eyes widen and she scribbles something down. Do you have your glasses with you, because you'll need to take contacts out of your eyes now. Dangit. I left my glasses at home. The glasses I should've brought with me. I take out my contacts anyway and prepare myself for the little puff of air in each eye...with full expectation of putting my contacts back in once it's over. To my surprise, the optician orders: Have a seat over there and the doctor will be right out. Uh...without my contacts? And, over where ? A

At around 10:00 Sunday morning, I'm sitting on the porch half-broiling in Milwaukee's special brand of humidity while relaxing away the time before we have to pack up and head back to church for volunteering at the church picnic. *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * In between wiping beads of sweat from my upper lip, my thoughts drift back to seven days before when we were tackling that last pain-staking two hours from St. Louis to Joplin and then later, Pierce City. I can still feel the silent fatigue hanging over my husband, my daughter and me as we drove those 200 hundred miles. We finally arrived, settled in, had dinner and then worried whether that we'd have to take cover from an impending tornado as National Weather Service suggested. But life in Joplin went on, as it was going on in Pierce City. In fact, the sun was shining. So we went. Back in 2012, I serendipitously found Editor of the Monnet Times, Murray Bishoff on the internet. He had researched our family history

The endless countryside is dotted with hay bales in random, yet organized rows. Then more hay bales, then meadows grasping on to the last greens of summers, then signs for rest stops, lodging and gas. Maybe a few cows and horses. Then more random hay bales. We're probably at mile 175 of a 600 mile road trip to Pierce City, Missouri. As rest/gas signs become fewer and fewer, my mind does what it always does: What would happen if we needed gas before the next exit? I imagine my daughter and I waiting roadside as my husband grows tinier in the distance, a lone figure walking into the sunrise with a telltale red gas container toward the next truck stop exit.  In this imagined reality, I will myself into not complaining or being passive-aggressive (my specialty) even in the face of being stranded gas-less on some abandoned stretch of beat-up road in Wisconsin...even though my husband could've just stopped for gas when we were at a half tank, and he does have  I am Capta

The most I know about my grandmother on my mother's side is that she was born in Missouri, had a short temper and that she didn't suffer fools gladly. Mom said that on Saturdays, my grandmother would take mom and her siblings on the streetcar to Milwaukee's Central Library. On one of those trips my mom, who was short, was struggling to keep up with my tall grandmother's long strides. Evidently the sidewalk was bustling with people and mom was holding my grandmother's hand for dear life. Mom ultimately tripped up a curb and ran smack dab into the stomach of a tall man going in the opposite direction. All she heard upon impact was OOF . My grandmother impatiently stopped, looked down at my mom and and said Geneva, you oughta sue the city for building the sidewalk so close to your a$$. Yeah, she's smiling here but I still wouldn't mess with her  and I'm her granddaughter. Mom said the extended family gathered every summer someplace in Missour

It's my favorite cuisine: German. Give me sauer braten, knackwurst and strawberry schaum torte. It's a Dr. Watts hymn sung by earnest deacons at Sunday devotionals before service starts. It's a Mighty Fortress sung at the right tempo at Reformation and Gott Ist De Liebe on Christmas. It's sweet potato pie spiced to perfection on Thanksgiving. All of that is home to me. I asked my daughter what home was to her. Insightful enough to realize that home can be a place or a state of mind, she asked, exactly how I defined home. I told her that her definition was up to her. She called upon memories of when she was young. She said she saw them as sunny faded Polaroids flecked with orange shimmers. She giggled and remembered the time when she believed she led her preschool class in a Happy Feet dance on the playground. Then her face grew dark when she recalled awkward situations at summer camp in the years that followed. Home is different for everyone --

What brings you joy? Like, actual joy? Somehow, the question came up in conversation with friends. I didn't want to put myself out there, so I sat back and listened: My relationship with friends. When I accomplish [insert accomplishment here] When people really get what I do all day. When I... When I... When I ... From my judgey perch, something uncharacteristically pushy inside me added Okay. But what brings us joy outside of ourselves? I'm pretty sure that's probably the last time I'll be invited anywhere. But anyway. There was a long pause and people (including me) began shifting uncomfortably. I mean, what in my definition of joy is not exclusively and inextricably linked to some benefit to me? How self-centered and self-serving am I anyway? We kept shifting and soon changed the topic. But I kept thinking: what brings me joy that isn't about me at its core? I came up with a few. And by a few, I mean few : Watching the lightbulb moment. Thes

My daughter's friend's mom stood up and publicly acknowledged her daughter for who she was, the blessing she was to her parents and community, and then prayed for her daughter to keep the faith.  This was my very first  Quinceañera  mass and it was all in Spanish; and, even though my brain doesn't speak Spanish, my heart totally does. So the Baptist call and response tradition in me was all... via GIPHY BECAUSE I COULD FEEL EVERY WORD THIS KID'S MOM WAS SAYING even though she was speaking Spanish. The mom was barely five feet tall and wore a sparkly beige dress with blue accents that mimicked her daughter's dress. Tasteful, but not full-on mother of the bride or anything. I figured she and I were around the same age. We're in that phase when you shave your legs less and pluck your chin more. Both of us understand that we've got more years behind us than ahead. Both of us understand this isn't a drill -- it's real life.

Please forgive me if the following seems self-indulgent and feel free to check out of this post if you do. I admit it. I'm probably the only one who's been discouraged, disheartened and frankly -- frightened -- about the tone and timbre of the good ol' U S of A in the past week and I don't know how to find...well, Balance. It's not just #BarbecueBecky or #PermitPatty or the kid entrepreneur on the wrong end of mowing grass a hair over a property line or denying asylum to asylum-seekers  or children being held in modern day interment camp s or its accompanying argument that the previous administration started it ...I'm just tired. Tired and torn, because down here on the third rock from the sun while all that is ripping me to shreds, I know people are still trying to balance out everything from whether they oughta buy the chicken or pay their electric bill, to grieving over children gone too soon. Man, I'm struggling to balance all of that with the

It was only when my husband informed me that "we" had volunteered to watch our neighbor's rescue dogs while she went out of town that I realized we were living a few doors down from a lush, green respite right on our block. Resentment over the "we volunteered" part and being bitten on the thumb by the elderly chihuahua was quickly forgotten when I finally coaxed the dogs to the backyard and discovered this. From that point on, I'd gladly shuffle Old Biter and her brother outside at wee hours in the morning, or rain or shine at night. I'd sit on the concrete path as they circled me in suspicion while I breathed in the greenery. After a while they trusted me and I forgave Old Biter...but not enough to not brand her with Old Biter as a moniker. That was the same year the daffodils bulbs I planted a nearly a year earlier blossomed ..and then died a short while after their all too brief life in the sun came to a close. They looked sad and so did o

Given the choice, I'd take singing a solo to millions over speaking to a crowd of fifty. With songs, there's a verse, a chorus, another verse and a chorus, maybe a coda and then I'm done. Speaking on the other hand, especially without notes, leaves the verse, chorus and coda to me and vulnerable to top-of-mind tangents liable to spur other tangents that could possibly last for hours. With that in mind, I told a story at tonight's event: nervous, shaking and determined to tell lost stories -- like those of the Fair Housing Marches held in our city a mere fifty years ago. Up until 1968, there was no forceful organized push-back against nefariously embedded red tape designed to keep brown folks in one corner of the city and white folks in the other. The march, the people who marched and the related untold histories were the centerpiece of this event that was held at Wisconsin's Black Historical Society . Oddly, and sadly enough, I really didn't know much

Let's just stop at that market on the way home. I'm starving. The gray day was spitting down in fits and starts, undecided whether to drench the whole day or drape the day over with a long, playful tease. My husband was hungry, and frankly I didn't feel up to post-church Sunday lunch duty. "that market" we'd pass on the way home was the kind where samples lured in shoppers down each aisle -- from the produce section, to the deli's gourmet sausages and cheeses to the snack section, replete with gluten-free tortilla chips and freshly made salsa. Sure. Let's do it . I said, knowing samples would be enough to stave off my husband's Hangries while I could shop for something more substantial for a proper lunch. We pulled into the lot as spitting rain continued. I'll drop you guys off and meet you inside, so you don't get wet. What a gentleman. We tumbled out and landed in the produce section. Fresh cantaloupe and papaya were the bait,

Hearing is one thing. Listening is quite another. Hearing is noticing the neighbor's dog barking and brushing it off as a nuisance. Listening is noticing the dog barking, and wondering if the dog is barking in alarm at a potential threat to myself or my family. We hear a lot of facts lately that leave room for us to fine-tune them to a palatable truth. The un-palatable truth is, if I'm being honest, I've heard a lot of facts, but I don't know whether I've done the work of listening to facts. Listening is work. It'd be me listening to you and the words you reflexively choose; noticing whether your arms are held close to your person, or whether you lean in toward me as you speak; whether you feel comfort enough to look me in the eye or if you're nervously looking off in the distance. And if I'm really listening, I just might be able to hear what you don't say. Then ultimately, I'll understand your facts, your truth. But gra