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New Work Accepted, Thanks for these gray hairs

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I submitted to Redrosethorns back in bleak February—who am I kidding, they’ve all been bleak lately. Anyway, I submitted a small snippet for a themed submission call around aging. Even though I don’t feel old, nor am I old old, stuff has come up, stuff I can no longer ignore. Such as, How do I get up off the floor now that I’m down here? Rredrosethorns is a woman-owned educational publication that promotes mental health and advocates for gender and sexuality education. I sent over their transom (again, showing my age) a poem/prose, prose poem about how it feels to be old/not old. It started with a list of observations about my body. I know, I lnow I run, I ride my bike, but there’s still the stairs at the end of the day. Someone’s going to have to get me up there—and it’s going to be me. Anyway—I made up a list and thought about it some more, then forgot about it, and then pulled it out (again, showing my age—it was there all along in a digital file) and spruced it up and sent it....
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Mom’s Podcast, on and on, nothing changes, all planes change

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I wrote a few weeks ago about my mother and her soap operas, you know, the daytime dramas that were on from about 1- 3 pm. Scheduled right after she got her morning household chores done and before the kids came home from school. That was life for the middle-aged, middle class housewife. Even the term house wife seems archaic. Anyway, I was reminded of this as I watched my daughter doing her business while walking around wearing headphones. She subscribes to a podcast. You can tell the generational difference: me, a baby boomer, has recently subscribed to Country Living magazine as a way to disengage from the world and all the stressful news. She, a millennial, has decided to pay for exclusive content from the podcast. I asked her what that meant. Of course, she rolled her eyes at me. (Just kidding, but it felt like it.) Behind the paywall (again, these terms!) she is privileged to take part in group chats, given access to YouTube videos to watch interviews that normal listener...
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Deck Sitting

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We have moved into select deck sitting. On the days when the sun is out we are able to sit within the enclave of the back patio in chairs facing the sun and in the square of sunlight hitting the decks. It’s a miracle. This past Sunday we slowly unpeeled layers of outer clothing. We set up the bistro table to hold mugs of hot tea while lounging. The little picnic table came out so the children could sit with a snack. The baby climbs up and down the stairs over and over, as if at Planet Fitness. We discuss the garden, house projects, new sand for the sand box. A Rubbermaid of sand toys is unearthed from the shed. We know it won’t last—this feeling of hope. We’ll eventually go back to cool and rainy. But, after that it will return. Come and go. For now deck sitting is keeping us going, that square patch of sunlight is lengthening, and we can at least pretend.
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The windy day and the yellow crown

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The children paraded around the nursery school in an effort to drive winter away and welcome in spring. It didn’t work. Nevertheless, they each got a crown. The day was warm-ish, not too cold, not too snowy, not too too. Except for the wind. The wind moved through the top of the fir trees, swaying the branches, starting small and then growing into a roar. Mom pushed the baby in the carriage to pick up her boy, who was wearing a yellow crown. They talked over the roar of the wind about lions and parades and the coming spring, until they got home. Walking up the driveway, the mom discovered her boy wasn’t wearing his crown; the wind must have whisked it right off his head. Leaving the children in care of their grandmother, she ran off down the street. She searched and searched. It was a challenge as the utility company had just set out little yellow flags on neighbor’s lawns, marking where the gas pipelines were underground. Everywhere she saw fluttering yellow flags that caught her ...
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Re-routing

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Sunday, once again, I joined the group Adventure-ish for a morning hike. This week the word was WET. (Last week it was ICY.) Soon it became apparent that we would be walking beside the trail more than on it. At certain points we had to traverse new spring streams. This was accomplished by walking further up/down to cross, jumping and getting a soaker, or, and this was my idea, throwing a bunch of sticks and twigs in order to cross relatively dry. At first it was a pain. We weren’t getting anywhere fast, which felt like a big change-up. I approach the hike like exercise, something to get done. Walking in cadence and letting my mind wander. Sunday’s hike was more about logistics, hopping on and over logs and figuring out how to not fall into water. But soon, the problem solving became motivational, exhilarating; I loved being about to figure things out and outfox the stream. There was at first complaining, moaning and groaning, then laughter. It reminded me that as humans we get stuc...
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