people change
Like butterflies, like tadpoles, people change, William asserts.
I know, he says, I know what they change into….
People change into skeletons.
Photo by Billy
For a book group, I just read Jamaica Kincaid’s memoir, My brother, on the death of her brother from AIDS. When someone who means something to you dies, Kincaid ventures, it feels like you are the first person this has happened to. Even though everyone will die, is dying.
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Filed under family matters, motherhood, photographs, reading | Tags: Jamiaca Kincaid My Brother | Comments (4)beautiful blogs
Thanks to Crazytown for linking to Jocelyn’s Stories for the Beautiful Blogger Meme.
Check out these beautiful blogs if you are so inclined:
and
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water cave, part 4
…Ray pokes her arm with his beer can…I know you want some girl, he says. Lannie shakes her head. She does not want some. Besides, she knows that if she has any beer, when the car crashes, when they find her body, then everybody will know she is to blame.
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Filed under Podcast, fiction, writing | Comment (0)saturday
Seven-thirty sharp, William burst into our bedroom, his arms full of mammals, reptiles, and at least one red-faced crab; stuffed animals gathered from the guest bed, the sofa, where they wait for such an occasion.
William piles these limp-limbed creatures ceremoniously onto our still sleeping bodies. Subsequent loads are dumped into the crooks of our knees, the spaces between us.
–Good-morning, William whisper/shouts. Is is Saturday?
Once we are half-covered, barely visible beneath an avalanche of fake fur, only then William himself amble over our tired limbs, scaling our rising knees like a mountaineer, burrowing feet first under the covers.
He puts his face close to mine, silent, reverent, but only for a moment.
–Mama, he says, Is it okay if we watch a video?
It’s okay, I say, so William watches PBS kids on our only TV, at the foot of our bed:’Sid the Science Kid’ into ‘Super Why.’ ‘Dinosaur Train’ because if you’re three what combination could be better? Meanwhile I half-sleep/ half-listen, my boy’s feet icy cold against me, stealing my warmth, and for a while we are both unimaginably content.
Photos by Billy (upper) and Papa Johnson (lower).
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Filed under family matters, motherhood, photographs | Comment (1)our house, at night
Our house with music by Juana Molina.
Video by Billy
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Filed under video | Comments (3)what you think
Thank you to all of you who comment, email, or Facebook about anything I’ve shared on Jocelyn’s Stories.
I am officially proclaiming April ‘More-Comments-Month.’
If you rarely do, maybe now is the time to write a comment on this blog or some other blog that you read. Share a post that means something to you and say why. Don’t be shy.
I know you’re out there. C’mon, I want to know what you think.
Family Portrait with Cousin Cole; photo by Papa Johnson.
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Filed under family matters, photographs, writing | Comment (0)watercave, part 3
Lannie decides she will look out of the window at ten o’clock exactly—if Sara is outside, then the water cave is real and they will find it. She waits and looks. No one is there. Still she isn’t sure.
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Filed under Podcast, fiction, short story, writing | Comment (0)women who make things happen (in art)
This month the Piedmont Council of the Arts is shining a spotlight on women in the arts–a proclamation far less controversial than Virginia Governor Rob McDonnell shining his spotlight on the honor of the Confederacy.
Or is it? There is something brassy, audacious even, about making art— especially if you are are a woman; the one who is still supposed to take care of and clean up after and support everyone else.
For my part, I’m going support this local powerhouse of a female theater company take their all woman show—Our American Ann-sisters— on the road.
For 5 bucks or more, pledged safely on Kickstarter you can help them reach their goal of raising the cash, but act quick if you want to help!
What female artists do you admire?
Me alongside Jenn Tidwell, of Our American Ann-sister, Performers Exchange-Project, CLAW and more.
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Filed under art, photographs, the world we live in | Tags: Our American Ann-sister, PCA, PEP, Women in the Arts | Comment (1)
the water cave, part 2
‘There is this one place,’ Lannie says. ‘A water cave.’
‘A water cave?’ Jeremy asks.
‘Yes, a water cave.’
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Filed under Podcast, fiction, short story, writing | Comment (0)our lab molly
Our lab Molly has gone a bit nuts in recent years. Ten years old, and she is suddenly afraid of our hardwood floors, scrambling with clicking nails from throw-rug to throw-rug. She stops at the doorway and barks hoarsely until someone escorts down the short hallway. She shakes, smacks her lips, chatters her teeth for days, hours, whole minutes, but when we take her to the vet, she wags her tails, and shows no sign of sickness.
When we adopted Molly, years before William, she briefly showed some of the same neurotic tendencies. But she was young, adorable, with her shiny black fur and shiny eyes and she soon stopped all of this, showing herself to be a sweet, athletic, slobbery dog you could take just about anywhere.
Over the years, we’ve gone through a lot with Molly. She was with us when we were still courting, a symbol that Billy and I were ready to settle down, commit to something big together. She was there when we got married, dragged around by our now-grown flower girls, nabbing a bun that the caterer dropped to the ground. She was there when we got our second dog, and when, 9 months later, we brought our brand new baby boy William home from the hospital—the kind of family dog that you could nuzzle an newborn up next to, just careful of the wild, wagging tail.
We’ve had a few close calls with Molly: an almost car collision, a bone chipped off in her stomach, and most recently a near fatal bout with bloat. But now she is mostly a well walked, well loved, healthy Labrador girl with a bit of gray under her chin. She is a dog who is happy except when she is, for some reason, very unhappy, very anxious, downright panicked.
There she is now, yelping the doorway. I try to still hear her; I teeter between not tuning her out, but not tuning her up too much either. Trying not to let her distress stress me out too, or break my heart. I get up, bring her back to us. She wags her tail, grateful. She falls asleep at our feet.
Photos by Billy
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Filed under family matters, photographs | Tags: anxious pet, black lab, dog afriad of wood floors, labrodor retriever, nuerotic dog | Comments (3)