Category Archives: hope

Not Beating Myself Up (58)

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Oh, how funny. I was checking to confirm my latest post had indeed posted and happened to notice I had 21 posts last March (and “only” 19 this year in March). I must have been just as unable in 2021 to let go of meeting my posting commitment for the year (and just as swept away by the big changes and new demands in my life). I have to grin. Here I am feeling all funny about inundating my subscribers, and it’s not even the first time I have done this. I have zero memory of last year’s efforts. And, of course, I’m hopeful I can post my 64 posts while I’m 64 throughout the year, all nice and leisurely. But I bet I said that last year, too. Ha!

Thank you, as always, dear readers, for making room for me and all my foibles.

Inspirited (52)

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I can hear the trill of a bird, a familiar, much-loved sound, but if I once knew who was making it, I have forgotten. My mother gets up from her computer game to wrap the fuzzy orange tube scarf around her cat, protection from the sliding glass door I’ve opened ten inches, desperate for “real” air and a connection to the earth. “It’s okay,” she says to Trie. “It’s okay.” Her voice is kind of sing-song, but it doesn’t bother me today. My mother goes back to her game, and I think how it’s likely just this reassurance she is wanting to hear, too. The familiar bird trill is further away now, maybe two yards over, and I hear a house finch singing next door. Yes, I think. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.

Someday (48)

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My orchid plant
and tiny shoots of the cactus
I brought home from Ajijic in 2009
sit beside each other on top of
the toilet tank
in my bathroom here
in my mother’s house
(together with the little
green plastic dinosaur who came home with me
from the hostel in the Marin Headlands)
and every now and then
especially after I water them
I stop and really take them in
rescued from my trailer home
by my dear friends
and somehow dear friends
themselves now, too
and talismans or hope or
living proof my little home
still awaits us all.

Tough Love (47)

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I trim the bushes on my little road
tecoma, bougainvillea, Mexican birds of paradise
so wrong this time of year
but so needed
to repair the butchering done to them
in my absence and
without my permission.
Now I am ruthless, but
each cut is made with love.
(After, I wash them with the hose
and pray for new growth.)

Trie (46)

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Now that I am giving
my mother’s cat
her fluids
every day
I look for
and savor
even more
the mornings when
her head feels sturdy
underneath my hand
or like yesterday
when she trotted off
down the hall—
buoyant.

Clinging? (44)

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And another haiku-ish thing
just to apologize
to you
my dear readers
for inundating you
in my (silly?) hope
of still posting
63 while I am 63.
(Yes, I am counting
this one, too.)

Wishes for the Day (37)

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The mockingbird greets me for the second morning in a row. He is on a different electric pole today, one pole north of yesterday’s. He’s my first mockingbird for 2022. I worried when I was in Palm Springs last week because I didn’t hear one. (I am good at worrying. I even wondered if something was wrong. Two years ago there were so many there, more than I’d ever known. Could there be a dearth of them this year?) I stand in the driveway, head back, looking up at him. “Good morning,” I say, happy to see him, happy he is happy. I don’t remember to look at anything else, to check the top of the ridge for hawks, to take in the sky. I only notice I am dressed too warmly for the sun, and when I walk back in the gate, I feel the cool air of the shade on my face. My wishes to each of you. May it be a good day. And if there is grief or anger or terror in it, may there be an unexpected moment of love or kindness or joy.