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Tag Archives: mother

Birthday, Mom.

12 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Birthday, Camaro, love, Mom, mother, New Jersey, NJTP, parents, questions, road trip

Whose dumb idea was it to get in the car and drive to Jersey, huh?
Probably yours, glad I came along for the ride, though.
Good thing I did because if I hadn’t you’d still be standing there on the
turnpike weeping.
(As I have done several times.)

That was in the days when I loved you and wanted to be your rock
and your friend, a companion of sorts. Our road trip to Jersey
sheltered in the deep sheepskin seat covers of an ’81
Berlinetta Camaro, beautiful bronze, you remember?

We limped past road signs with names and numbers
we sat on the side of the road and counted the pieces of
amber glass, green glass, white glass, and loose cement
while we waited for the car to cool down.

I made it my job to make you laugh, you remember?
What the fuck is a Cheesequake and why is it a state park?!
Matawan. If that’s not a Native American word nothing is,
“bad riverbank” indeed, the name of our trip.

Well Chummer, we’re not standing on the side of the road anymore
wondering what to do next, phoneless, clueless, helpless.
I have Google, now, to solve all my problems, haven’t I?

Bonfire for E.

14 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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amwriting, fire, mother, ocean, poem, woman

welcome enter
how did we find each other
doesn’t matter
our candles burn the same

i am crone in the cave naming
sea life remains
one long tide at a time.

the mother of me sees the mother of you
i have balm for that.
you are still spring and fight
where I am retreat and ruminate

the world is blind at night,
but for a little moon
we are unsafe on the waters
and deepest african shores
still we prowl, seeking danger

we are eating and drinking and laughing
when we should be
writing
writing
writing

when next you see me, darling
bring your book and your pen
refuse all distraction
enter the cave hungry and wet
and longing

bring basil and pepper and vinegar
ghost pepper
empty cask
bring your longing and prepare to
dash it on the rocks
fearless woman, rise up
stain your fingers with woe
and love and find liberty.

Thoughts of Laquan

06 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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16, bullet, change, child, holes, justice, Laquan McDonald, love, mother, murder, pain, sixteen

One

  Two

Three

Four   Five  Six

                      Seven

Eight

Nine
Ten.    Ten.   Ten.

   Eleven

                      Twelve

             Thirteen 

                Fourteen                                         Fifteen 

Sixteen. 

 

I’ll bet you’ve had sixteen kisses planted on your face when you were in the middle of something by a little kid who loves you, rapid pace, out of the blue, the moment when your child’s cup overflows and they must kiss and love the joy is so much and you might have been annoyed for breaking into your busyness, but sixteen pecks on your face. Pixels cannot hold that moment but a heart can.

The number means something different to me today. It means less because I am not his mother, I am not from his community. I don’t know what she knows. But still, I think about him today, and yesterday.

I don’t know what 16 bullet holes looks like in my son’s flesh, or even my own.  I could draw little dots on my body to see how it looks but that’s dots and this is flesh that will write junk today and junk tomorrow. I just need someone to know that I won’t forget. That her son matters. Justice matters. And I don’t want to play this numbers game anymore.

A Daughter Floats Away

03 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Asian flower patterns, black velvet, breathe, conflict, daughter, display, dream, mirrors, mother, wind

My eyes open in my dark room. Moon white through window blind slats illuminates the garnet underleaves of the prayer plant. Breathing the last dream I had.

A small girl wears great, wide, long sails of black velvet. Asian flower blooms edged in gold float on her capes that she wears on her tiny shoulders. She is to be my daughter soon. Everywhere we walk there is wind, no, strong breezes, the kind to fly kites in that won’t be pulled out of your hands. She spends all her time trimming and gathering her “sails” so her capes will flow out beautifully, so the flowers can all be seen and be pretty.

We are in a small room, antique, ornate, silent. The room is crammed with mirrored shelves with cups and plates on display, cups and plates edged in Asian flower blooms and gold. The room is difficult to walk in, there is little room to move about without bumping into a display, and there is a woman in here now. She is the girl’s cruel mother, and she won’t give her to me.

Some Thoughts On Kavanaugh v Ford, though it could be more but you ain’t got time.

28 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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advice, birds and bees, Catholic, Catholic school, crime, dad, diary, Ford, humiliation, Kavanaugh, listen, make-out, man, mother, period, punished, rape, sea change, sex, sex-ed, teach, teach your son, truth, white male privilege, woman, women's issues

Mom handed me a small hardcover book one day. I can’t remember what year it was, or what room I was in.  I think I was in apartment 3F. She asked me to read these pages, which I did, and she said ask me any questions, which I didn’t, and the whole thing was done.  That’s how I learned about how men get on top of women and they gently rub against one another and some things are exchanged and a baby grows in the woman.  I remember, after reading, feeling kind of weird. Like, the book being presented to me came out of nowhere. I recall feeling like, “Okay….” but not much more.
Probably when Mom presented me with this book when I was in the 5th grade, still in Catholic school, and I can still remember having the best make-outs with someone whose name I shall not say.  Wow.  Maybe Mom knew I was growing and having feelings and probably making out with somebody and thought the birds and the bees talk was appropriate.  I had no idea what to do with his incredible kissing, I had no idea that it can sometimes lead to sex which leads to babies. I had no idea that I was valued and important. All I knew in those 5th grade days was that I had to go to school, that I was picked on for having ugly shoes, socks, and haircut, that I was punished, humiliated in the halls for failing math, and yeah, we had some good times with our friends playing in the courtyard in the back.

Mom sat me at the table one day. It was daylight and we were 60 miles north of the place we used to live, far from the old bullies, but other battles were raging.  I don’t recall how the conversation began but she told me that if I ever got in a situation, I shouldn’t scream “rape” because no one would help. She said I should scream “fire” because everyone would react.  She said if I got in a situation I should say I have some kind of disease and not to do this so you don’t get that disease too, or I have my period.   I don’t remember what year it was or what lead up to that. I guess she figured since I was dating she assumed that heavy petting would be involved which of course leads to sex.  She also told me if I come home pregnant she would break both my legs.  So.  My sexual education wasn’t great. It left me to my own devices, and I made a lot of mistakes. I will never forget the humiliation of my parents reading my diary from when I was in college that detailed beautiful lovemaking with my boyfriend at the time.

Questions. Statements. Humiliation.  Does this sound familiar to you, woman and man? Did your parents leave you to your own devices to figure out the sex thing? Who taught you who to say no or yes about sex? About pubic hair and periods and condoms and consent?

At 1:30EST there will be a vote in the Senate to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as the next Supreme Court Judge.  I’ve followed everything the Trump administration does and his nomination is no exception.  Judge Brett did not impress me because he did not say he would uphold Roe v Wade. He’s been demure about his Bush years. Dr. Ford’s testimony didn’t help much, either.

What this brings to these morning thoughts are more questions than answers.  Is this the sea change we needed to help women stop staying silent and speak out against their assaulters and abusers?  Are more men willing to listen and believe a women when she says she was assaulted?  Will more women come forward and report their rapes and abuse and their testimony be taken seriously? Will families take this moment and use it as an example to teach their boys not to grope and seek gratification and laugh at a person who can’t say no?  Will families take this moment, no matter how embarrassing, to tell their boys don’t force, grope, assault, abuse women, and tell their girls you are loved and you matter and I believe you?  Will we tell our girls you don’t have to kiss that boy or put your hands in his pants or let him do what he wants because it affirms you.  Is this the moment where we tell our children that it’s natural to be attracted and to want, but forcing ourselves on each other is inexcusable?   Will this be a sea change?   I don’t know.  Dr. Ford was assaulted. Judge Kavenaugh says it wasn’t him. Their testimonies were emotional and believable.  This is a teaching moment for all of us and we should take advantage of it.  Teach our daughters their worth, that they won’t be abandoned if they have sex or, worse, raped. Teach them, your face to his face and her face, not in some book the facts of the human body, natural attraction, but to reject force, and to support our girls if peer pressure led them to sexual acts they weren’t ready for and regret, and reinforce our boys the difference between want–attraction–and force, assault.

Support your children with facts. Support your children with the law. Support your children with love.  If you only give them a teaspoon of each, they’ll wind up in a dark hallway giving handjobs because it affirmed them or on their backs because  privilege says this is not a crime.

My mom didn’t know how to do this and I’m betting neither did hers.  Generations told their daughters to be ladylike and polite. Poised. Accepting.  Is this the moment when we can stop a generational fault and teach our sons that it’s not okay to grope, assault, and abuse women, to respect them as equals, and our girls that they are more than help-meets, that we are curious, intellectual, scholarly, strong, brave, and that we matter?

All Your Birthday Are Belong To Us

11 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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birth, life, memory, mother, pain, period, sister, tough shit too bad, woman

you would never believe how big you can be
until your bellybutton turns inside out.
you would never believe how much pain you can take
(your mission, should you decide to accept it)
until you accept it, knowing
the pain train was coming,
ready to deliver a full body-blow
that you’d forget it like nothing,
all that stretching and bursting a shadow
a breeze on a mountain you left below
like the chat you made with the guy who
tattooed “always” on your tender skin
or the reason you put it there.

you would never believe how much you can figure out
curled up on a towel in the dark,
a hard plastic piece in somebody’s endgame,
you become your own mother
when you figure out the gore will stop when it’s ready
and not a minute before
like it does sometimes
so sweat it out, sister,
allow yourself a whimper, walk the floor
you ain’t dying though it feels like you’re birthing the whole damned world
tonight.

you would never believe that the body can shut off the faucet
a freaking morning miracle that you can breathe pain-free now
the clot-o-rama paused
courtesy of healthy organs the doctor said he would never remove
because you are fifty and want a reprieve
but you get what you get and you don’t get upset because
there are one hundred more birthdays waiting to burst through
before this is done.

Jim Nabors

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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childhood, choir, don't give up, holy, Jim Nabors, memory, mother, music, passion, poem, power, sing, tears, voice

Jim Nabors has left us. I am glad he is in peace. I can’t say that he’s the reason I wanted to be a Marine. It’s too complicated for that. (It’s certainly more complicated than the unyielding call of the jets flying over the warehouse where I toiled.)  His most recognizable character, Gomer Pyle, was simple in nature, kind of heart, which seems antithetical to being part of the war machine. He was part of my childhood thanks to Mom and his voice… oh. Jim Nabors’ voice.  I learned about passion by his voice alongside Andy Williams, Johnny Cash, Cher, Barbra Streisand, so many more. I heard his voice sing the hymnals I recognized from church, and it moved me, a girl of impressionable age.   Jim moved on, and I am grateful to the internet for sharing his performance of Impossible Dream (The Quest).  I dare you to listen and not be moved and reminded that the world is the life and we are stewards of it all, and our voices are holy. Our voices are holy.  (don’t waste it all.)   He is with my mother now, who introduced me to black and white TV. Shazam, and Golly, and Surprise.

Oh, by the way.  Tell me how you feel after reading the lyrics to this song. How does one bear it, how will you learn to bear it, where does your strength come from to sing those notes he sings effortlessly the power of that poem, to find the will, and the will, and the will to do anything at all, in those years that I didn’t know I had any power at all, little girl? Jim’s song seems effortless. I will never write or live or be as effortless as the victory of his voice… but it sure does give me something to strive for.

I may or may not stop weeping on the sound and the voice of his memory. And that’s just okay.

Sexual Harassment Assault Guilt Survivor #MeToo

16 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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#MeToo, assault, child, danger, guilt, mother, rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, survival, survivor

Big headline. Got your attention, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing.  Maybe because I’m not sure of anything.  Anyway. It’s provocative, I chose it for a reason: to draw attention to those who have experienced and suffer, and ask what can you do to help stop this epidemic of people who think it’s okay to touch, grab, and thrust themselves into anyone they want:

Life was lived in and around a complex of brick buildings surrounded by parking lots, grocery stores, a busy highway, a few green courtyards and parks, some way cooler than others.  Ours had a giant willow in the back, a maze of sidewalks that linked building to building, and two small concrete parks. Ours had a slide, monkeybars, a basketball hoop, and a showerhead that gave water only once in a while during the summer. It was surrounded by chain link fence, concrete benches for moms to sit on, and bushes that were full green at the top but gray and naked as they disappeared into the hard-packed earth below: perfect hiding spots, forts, space commands, and anything else we needed those bushes to be.  God it was fun watching the neighbors walk past, unbeknownst to our silent, peeking eyes in the bushes.

I was in the park when he called me over. I didn’t know who he was, but I went. It was just a short hop over the chain link fence into the high dirt hill behind the hoop hidden by a bit of brush and scrub trees.  We talked for a while.  His friend sat up on the higher part of the hill.  I was maybe ten or younger.  He was maybe 18 or more.  We talked and then we kissed.  Deeply. He was lying down and then I was lying down. I liked how it felt.  His friend clapped and said some things  like wow, I can’t believe you got her to do it. They left eventually and I hopped back into the park. I never told anyone because I didn’t think it was a big deal. Weird, but not something I should tell mom.  They never came back.

I was taught to be afraid of many things in those days, like that guy over there that mom made us cross the street to avoid because she said something wasn’t right with him.  He used to talk to himself.  She warned us about another guy who liked to come around, said he was dangerous and told us to come inside if we ever saw him, but us kids liked him.  He was older than us, a teenager really, but he was always cool.  Once he lit smoke bombs in our secret bushes and it was awesome! But he never did anything to us.  Mom taught us to fear bandoliers of fireworks smushed in the mud on the path between our house and the grocery store. She said it was dangerous, never touch it, and her word about danger was gospel.  Once I scared me and my brother to death by throwing rocks at an “Amityville Horror” billboard that was on the way to our Catholic school. I can still feel our legs running down the block and up the stairs, lungs seeking to replenish the hot fearful air we’d accumulated.

Turns out, I was taught to be afraid of all the wrong things.  To be on guard for all the wrong things.  I was taught guilt and shame for the human condition, but not how to say no to people putting their hands on me, like my boss, a woman, who loved to massage all us girls in her department. I should have stood up and told her keep your hands off me, I don’t like how this feels, but I stayed quiet because she did it to all us girls.

Danger doesn’t always come with a warning label. We have to figure it out for ourselves, and it’s hard to speak out when we realize we accepted something as normal.  There are some who will say we brought it on ourselves.  I want to tell you that you didn’t ask to be cat-called, touched, groped, assaulted, raped, physically or mentally.  I want to tell you that the world is starting to hear and believe. I want to tell you that you don’t have to speak out now, right now, if you’re not ready, but there are a lot of people who will believe you and can help.   I want to thank everyone who speaks their truth, brave in the face of unbelief and shame and pain who gave us ground to grow and walk upon.

#MeToo is the hashtag on Twitter if you want to share what happened to you. I hope the conversation will help open a blind eye from the abuse.  Thank you.

Cicada, For The Record

04 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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aunt, autumn, cicada, memory, mother, summer

Cicada serenade crickets high above wet dawning grass

Morning plant watering, windows open,  twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder where you are as your magical vibrations call to the other

Buzzsaw driven by season, scaring northerners who never heardasuchathing.

Cicada crashed into me last morning two feet from my door, then crashed into another door then flew away muttering cicada curses having lost foothold on branch and song, weakening in season and song.

I open my door again, barefeet cold, morning no-wind. I see your black, bug-eyed body prone on the gray balcony, and I wonder if you are alive. Something tells me you are alive.

I remember baby food jars that held your carmel shells, the scent of your moultings strong in my nose, magicked by the Lampyridae flittering away in Aunt Betty’s yard, two and four horsepower–

three sisters sitting in broken-webbed lounge chairs talking women things, shooing us away, cigarette tips glowing in the dark–

Black cicada mumbled on my gray balcony. He crept his way towards the edge and fell down to the grass below, silent, Juliet unknown.

A Prayer For The Little Mothers

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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gratitude, incense, justice, mother, prayer, suffering

Little cauldron Three Legs, metal of earth shaped by human hands, symbol of maiden, mother, and crone filled with smoky, deep incense:  I come to you imperfect, willing but unwise and always seeking. My hands are tied to yours, fingers burning. I ask you into my heart and my home, though my corners are dusty. No secret is unknown to you.

I pray for all the Little Mothers. My heart aches for one today, and I seek your counsel. Some Little Mothers suffer more than the others, it seems their constant charity, compassion, and kindness when they themselves have so little is repaid with more suffering. Perhaps I have much to learn from them, and should not question the choices they make, offering everything they have to everyone in need, saving nothing for themselves, still finding strength to go on.

Perhaps you are already with the Little Mothers, though they do not recognize you. Perhaps it is you that breathes courage and happiness into their ears while they sleep. It is you I see in their shy smiles. Perhaps it is we who need to examine our “suffering,” ask our hearts to empty so they may fill, open arms to all, not just the deserving.

Help me to remember these things always, long after the incense fades.

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