Needleminder   (exercise 1)

Your small profile leaves us flatfooted when you strike
Sitting there, tapered and pin straight Innocuously small
Concentrated in your power
To both mend and rend
One being necessary for the other.  

In the right hands, a tool deserving of respect blended with caution.

In the wrong hands, the chaos spreads.
Too much of a good thing? 
Too much of anything.
Too much.

 

Happy Trails (Exercise 2)

Trouble sleeping only catches me when I need rest the most. When I’ve crossed off every item on my CVS receipt-length task list in a single day and when I have an early flight to catch. It’s especially the case the night before L turns 9 and we take him on a special trip—New York City and Legoland--and the feels are high both because we’ve nurtured this small miracle for almost a decade and because he’s living a childhood so far from mine it’s enough to make me weepy with gratitude and awe and my own healing.   Breathing through takeoff, eyes closed, mind focused on the small hand I’m holding (more for my own comfort than his). He’s fine. He’s a “no big deal” flyer who complains about the boredom on flights because sitting with nothing to do isn’t a reprieve for him like it is for me and no matter how many activities are in his LEGO backpack, it’s somehow never the right thing, never enough, never what he thought it would be when he packed it.   Welcome to New York/it’s been waiting for you. A playlist of NYC-themed songs runs through my mind. I lean into the wonder of being in a city so old, so tall, so full. The wonder of being so far from home (so different from the place I’ve landed) in such a short period of time. The wonder of being alive and the wonder of feeling it.