The Late Arrival

Nearly one year into COVID quarantine, and we’re still in darkness. I still believe hoping in darkness : that unseen good things thrive, grow and bloom in the darkest of places.   Today felt like another dark day in a long stretch of dark days, so I decided to intentionally eat my feelings on days like these as I have done for roughly ten of the eleven months of lockdown.   Pioneer Woman’s BestEver Lasagna fit the bill for the day’s emotional eating. I set out meats for defrosting as my daughter and husband set out for shopping at the local hardware store and Target.   They got back home as the meat sauce simmered; and after settling in with her newfound Target treasures, my daughter offered to pitch in with lasagna assembly.   This, in of itself, is any parent’s reason to rejoice, but when you are the parent of an artistic kid with specific and precise aesthetic expectations, an offer to help with lasagna assembly is less help and more annoyance.   B...

A true story. They always seem to come without warning out of the clear blue with some deep truth that's eluded me for most of my adult life. This was one of those times. I was feeling all high and mighty for encouraging my kiddo's discipline throughout the stay at home order (like that's not part of the parenting gig, but whatever). Well...what was I supposed to say? Seriously, what is it like to be a teen right now, nonetheless a teen who's busting her butt academically, much less one whose school year was shut down in the blink of an eye? But to hear her articulate MOM. I'M BLACK. THIS IS WHAT WE DO. And yes, she's white and black, but she's realized in her whole short seventeen years, she is perceived as black, so she embraces it. But still... THIS IS WHAT WE DO. I've always taken the THIS IS WHAT WE DO as a given. She's well aware of my family being at the center of a triple lynching and then starting a new life here in M...

So I usually fall asleep by one or two o’clock, and then I wake up around three-thirty. My then-therapist nods his head and lets out an Ohhhhh…mmmmm. Then, I stay awake long enough to see the sun rise and then drift off for what feels like ten minutes maybe, and then wake up groggy. It's a beautiful thing when you actually want to see it. Ohhhh…mmmm. *blank stare from me* You’ve got EMA’s. At last, a diagnosis. Wait. What are EMA's? Am I dying? I knew I was dying. *heavy sigh from the therapist* EMA's are Early Morning Awakenings. Well, no %$@&$! Sherlock! Look, I’ve never been a good sleeper, unlike my husband who can literally say goodn—and be snoring before his head hits the pillow. It’s some weirdo parlor trick that we probably oughta take on the road. Even now, it takes at least a week for me to fall asleep and then the dreaded EMAs hit. I was in my late-twenties at the time of my thirty-dollar-copay EMA “diagnosis.”...

The waiting is the hardest part. Every day you see one more card. You take it on faith. You take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part. So what do the lyrics to one of my favorite Tom Petty songs have to do with yesterday’s sermon? The sermon on this First Sunday After Christmas centered on people in the Bible who were celebrating Jesus’ birthday even though they weren’t circled around the manger when He was born on that December 25 silent night. (Yes, I know He wasn’t born on December 25. I’m just checking to see if you’re still with me here) Here’s the story in a nutshell Simeon was a guy who was close to God. I’m thinking Simeon prayed daily and in one of those prayers, God told him that Jesus was coming, and even though Simeon was really old, he’d get to see baby Jesus before he died. Sure enough, the Baby is born, His parents take him to temple, Simeon actually holds the Baby and sings a big ol’ long song of praise and thanksgiving. The End. But maybe ...

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...

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...

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 re...

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 Capt...

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. ...

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...

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...