my friend wrote a book

There it is. In my lap. Leila Marshy wrote The Philistine. 

I can't do a review—others have that covered—but I can do a reaction.
I loved that Nadia kept moving toward... Maybe not forward, but she's not content to not seek. She doesn't quite know what she's getting into, but she keeps moving and I wanted to go along because I understood that what she'd learn would be worth knowing. I loved the past in present moments. I loved Manal. I loved Bishara. I wanted to know Clare a little more.

You know something is good when, as you read, you collect bits that strike something in you and draw a smile or an ache. Here are some pretty pebbles I collected:

"How could we know? Our enemy now was all of history. All of history!"

---

Nadia hadn't seen any pigs. Maybe her mother was getting her animals mixed up? "But Mama, but Mama, they were dogs."
Bishara winked at her, he would take care of it.
But now she could see the animals now. She could see them and hear them and every now and then feel them. The sidewalks were sliced in two between the men who ignored her and the men who wanted to eat her for lunch.

---

Between them, in the empty space, she caught Manal's eyes. Her definitely watching eyes. "I'm going to stay here. Thanks for the invitation," she said.

---

Nadia shuddered with a laser-like awareness that informed her as to the business of every hair on her arm, every millimetre of space between them that was occupied not by fabric but by longing.

---

To everyone's visible relief, he approached from the long hallway, the shib shib shib shuffle of his slippers disconcertingly familiar. He could have been coming to tell Nadia it was bedtime, to ask her what she was reading, to entreat her to dance with him to Farid Al Atrash in the living room, to call her to taste his mujadara, the lentil dish he grew up eating and which he made, he swore, better than anyone.

---

The three of them smiled at each other, looking from one to the other. Something happened just then, in that precise moment. A fire like a lit fuse ran around them, energized the room, charged the air. They became friends.

---

...there was an unseen architecture that was sometimes visible, most times not. A framework of obligations, diminished expectations, and only the illusion of opportunities.

Just go now. Read it.

meantime

I really love this post by Cool Ranch Luke. In an effort to hit reset, clear out the metaphorical ill-fitting and unredeemable, and pay homage to the meantime, I offer this more dreary, but still hopeful imitation.

About 5 years ago, after watching my son, then four, brought again to hysterics and vomiting by the booming anger of my ex, THB, I intervened with my 5'2" frame, shoving THB, a hulking, fuming, foot-taller-than-me human, and summoned enough spine to shout my intent to divorce. The kids watched the whole thing. I never wanted them to see that again. Ever. I wanted them to experience contrast to that existence and to understand what a twisted portrayal of marriage and family that was. In the months following, I:
- started seeing a therapist regularly;
- fell in love with a woman, D;
- became a librarian of the web variety;
- slept too little and lost too much weight;
- moved into a two-bedroom rental in the basement of a ex-professional wrestler's home;
- met Cool Ranch Luke IRL;
- totaled my car; and
- watched cancer claim my grandma and emphysema take my grandpa (these two).

About 3.5 years ago, my son started kindergarten and my daughter was in her second year of preschool. D moved in with us, and we gradually loosed (most of) the grip of THB's influence to establish a healthy home of love, imperfection, and forgiveness.

About 2 years ago, and after a year of efforts, I gave up on a Meetup group I'd created. I failed to find more couples like us or families like ours...with one lovely exception. On the very last event I planned, we met and became friends with two women from India. They'd fallen in love in school, later moved to the U.S. to be together, and then got married shortly after it became legal in the U.S. They lived within 5 miles of the three-bedroom place we'd rented just months prior.

About 1.5 years ago, those same friends were the witnesses at D and my wedding. D is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

About 1 year ago, I became a librarian of the ill-defined, middle-management variety. Still trying to find my way through that, and seriously pondering whether a mid-life crisis career shift is in order. I may settle for a nose ring.

About 6 months ago, I started the process of trying to wrench free of some of the remaining ridiculous power THB has over our lives. First, mediation (fail). Next is court. I'm hopeful, but know it's likely to not go in our favor. The tarnished silver lining is that there are now more witnesses to his behavior. Ever dealt with OCPD? It's (characteristically) undiagnosed, but it's a near perfect description of THB. Except he's unemployed; helicopter parenting is his profession.

About 2 months ago, my dad died. It took a while for me to understand why I responded internally with anger when people said they were sorry for my loss. Perhaps because the loss wasn't the loss they assumed. Perhaps also because it was punctuated by the fucked up dynamics he established that played out amongst my siblings and me as we settled his affairs and settled him below ground. Yeah, still working through that. Already lost April to it. Maybe more another time.

In the last month and a half, my son turned nine and my daughter turned seven. D and I have a year and a half of marriage under our belts. Discounting THB, things are really good.

blip

I'm toying, really.

Clickety clickety. New theme. A little cleanup. Minor gaps filled.

I'm stirring within the parameters of "nowadays" (see here). Same decade even. (Holy shit.) But neither our shrunken perspective of time, nor the expansive notion of it holds sway in real life. Millennia have passed, as far as I'm concerned.

I'd love to go back and controvert the turds I'd buffed to a shine and posted here, but it's best to let sleeping turds lie.

no more & no less

Quote from "Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America" by Natalie Goldberg -

"Real, solid growth and education are slow. Look at a tree. We don’t put a seed in the ground and then stick our fingers in the earth and yank up an oak. Everything has its time and is nourished and fed with the rhythms of the sun and moon, the seasons. We are no different, no more special, no less important."

as for me and my house, we will find farts funny

"As for the silly behavior. Burping and farting is not funny at this house, I think it was at yours, hopefully it is not anymore. They think saying excuse me means they can do it over and over again and laugh about it. I tell them everybody burps and farts, but it is usually by accident, and they say excuse me. They don't do it over and over again to be funny. [boychild] likes getting laughs. I think he likes that type of attention. I am not 100% sure what to do about that yet, other than to keep telling him that school time is not a time to be silly.

On a very minor note, try to get [girlchild] to stop saying Poop or Poopie so much. I think, that is her attempt at being funny. She says it a lot."

postcard: tonglen tanka #2

I don't know these words
grace and mercy. forgiveness.
I wish them for you
to be kinder to yourself
and to the hearts in your care.

http://nbwhoop.tumblr.com/post/55312729081/tonglen-tanka-2

cursory crime

Peter, Peter booming screamer

Has the wife, but he won't keep her

Georgie Porgie prepped the pie

Kissed the girl and made her cry

Mary Mary so contrary

Tends the garden, ever wary

postcard: skeleton in your closet

From 5th grade to 8th grade I was a bit of a kleptomaniac. It likely started in TX with my sister & a friend thinking it funny to have me walk out of a store with something. But then in MN, I stole money from my grandmother, shirts and cassette tapes (yes, tapes) from my aunt and cousins, clothes and tapes from stores... I recall stealing an Ocean Pacific tee from a boutique clothing store/tanning salon (BouJous? Terrible name.) where my friend went tanning. I stole textbooks from English and writing classes and other books from libraries. I stole sunglasses. I stole silver rings and jewelry from the local crafts fair. I stole someone else's birthday gift while at a birthday party. That time I got caught. It was in middle school and it could have gone badly and stayed with me, but they mercifully downplayed it. The last thing I recall stealing was $ from the till at my first job. Then I just stopped. It felt gross and dishonest, and I didn't want to be that.

http://nbwhoop.tumblr.com/post/52200968266/u-pik-it-a-prompt-smorgasbord