today begins week 3 of summer, but vacation is hardly the word for it. i have a 21 month old climber baby who inherited his grandfather's love of partying. he does sleep in a bit, but life with him is nearly escaping harrowing situations many times a day. i don't know why toddlers are laser focused on harming themselves, but he approaches life with zeal and fully sprinting toward everything, including water.
i just returned from Denver and Colorado Springs with the Ypsilanti Youth Choir (with Sali!) , where we got to visit cultural, scenic and scientific sites and perform at Red Rocks (in the stands during the day, flash singing mob style), Flying W Ranch (Back to Ypsilanti was the song we sang!) i spent my 44th birthday studying Indigenous art at the Denver Art Museum, touring street art in the RiNo district and at Meowolf Denver. Then we toured beautiful rock formations and dinosaur bone excavation sites and took the train up to Pikes Peak, for the summit of our trip. Sali got to sing, hang out with friends and explore art and culture in a new city in the mountains, building her confidence in public performance and her love of music.
meanwhile, my mom took Nas and Pape up north for a cabin experience, so they got to have a summer exploration, even if much different from ours. time and space always makes people see one another in a new light. sometimes the people we love the most, we struggle to get along or see eye to eye with. on Father's Day, it brought me great joy that Jude, Chris, Ben, Amy and the girls, my mom and my boys were on Torch Lake, with my dad.
it has been a tough year and i stay overstimulated. i crave quiet, peace, Sadé ushering in stretching, yoga, journaling. i get none of the things i want, and feel pulled, demanded from, vilified all of my days. i've written before about the idea of summer and reality of summer are different coasts: one with a supple beach and warm breeze, one walking the frigid homelands of my last ounce of patience.
i don't know how, when or where to find quiet, what she looks like anymore. i struggle to know myself. i found a copy of my first zine the other day and someone noted my poems were sexy. where is that version of myself? where is the love for myself that i used to feel? how has motherhood and work stripped me of my ability to see myself as young and curious?
i feel worn and withered, wrung out like a dishrag. i am not nearly done resting, seeping in quiet, color, sunlight, breeze, water and sand. i will find the energy to live loudly, to bring my own kids the brightness of my face and not just the dark shadows of my exhaustion. i will turn toward the light of their love in the darkness that seeps into every day in this world. we must keep holding our humanity up to the light, especially when powers that bomb don't see humanity or civilization under the places they hollow out. free palestine, and apartheid everywhere it exists. we all deserve home, self-determination, education, health care and basic needs to be met.
taking suggestions on resting styles, places, ways and wonders. keeping myself at the forefront, not an afterthought anymore. meditating on place, on home, on uplifting history and connecting ourselves to others. we need each other, and we ALL collectively need rest and ease. join me.
love, lolo
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