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I was never one of those moms who grieved their kids growing up. I thought it was great.

I didn’t want them to be babies forever. Or to be toddling around the house indefinitely. I didn’t want to stand on the sidelines of wet soccer fields with a cold cup of coffee watching confused kids kick the ball to each other on Saturday mornings that seemed to last for months. I liked being the mother of little kids but only because of its impermanence.

I love that my kids are grown up. And I say that without the least bit of angst.

Oh, I look back and I remember them as little kids. How I carried them everywhere, how I stroked their cheeks to calm them, laid on the couch with their little selves asleep on my chest, sang to them songs I made up and that no one else…

Oh Little Clinic
attached to the store
You’ve been there awhile,
but I didn’t notice before.

See, the kids see a doctor,
the pediatrician I chose,
but today was no good
to hear of my woes

And tomorrow, the weekend
he wouldn’t be about,
I don’t blame him too much,
but still there is doubt.

My baby is sick
he’s been sick for awhile,
I hate him so fussy,
and I miss his sweet smile.

So the doctor, he told me
I should give you a try
and I pinched my lips
and maybe rolled an eye.

Oh wonderful, I thought
do they even know what they’re doing?
If they were good at all
they’d be too busy for a viewing.

But I went just the same
I went a bit grumpy
I went with my baby
who was feeling quite dumpy.

We waited a bit
and then we got…

Friends and family thought me insane

for falling under Svetlana’s spell

yet I fell hook, line and sinker

you see she was a loving kind of girl

She first sought me out at the banquet

I hosted for the Queen

played footsie under the table

had the finest cleavage I’d ever seen

Begged me to drive her home that night

in my Bentley where of clothes she shed

my chauffeur discreet in his driver’s seat

Svet unadorned as if a newly wed

And later back at her place

some hovel near Earl’s Court

she forced me to make love to her

she was a dominating sort

It seemed Svet couldn’t get enough of me

we did ‘rude’ things far and wide

at Royal Ascot, Henley, Wimbledon

in public places countywide

The PM took me aside one day

said, ‘You’re punching above your weight

for that gal is a money grabbing…

Stuff.

My Grandma used her stuff. Her nice dishes, crappy dishes, heirloom thingies, left over grocery bags, whatever it was, she used it. And if she didn’t have a use for it, she’d say, “Hey, I have something for you.” And then it was your job to use it.

I was retold all this over the holidays when my Aunt Maxine told me to pick out some of Grandma’s old dishes. “I don’t need all this and I want to get rid of some clutter.” I guess we know her New Years Resolution.

I picked up a pretty, yet oddly shaped dish, and asked, “I wonder what Grandma used this for?”

“Oh who knows,” my dad said, “but I’ll tell you one thing. It was definitely used.” It was glass and sparkling and pretty and I imagined she might have put candy in it during the holidays. Or maybe buttons…

Nights at the Magdalene Laundry

Waiting, as if it could
be foreseen, as if influence and love
and truth could ease into the conversation,

she pours water into the night’s
mouth. A little longer, says the voice,
and the wind bends the grass,

reaching, without apprehension, a conclusion.

Which is not to claim verity, nor the patience of stone
crumbling along the ledge.

She leaves when nothing remains.

There was a time when I joked that there wasn’t any problem in our lives that couldn’t be fixed with bigger wine glasses.

And we bought some really big ones. Giant wine glasses that could double as cereal bowls, maybe mixing bowls if the situation got desperate enough. We didn’t horse around with our wine glasses. We got the biggest they made. Bucket o’ wine.

In a restaurant, the waiter might bring giant wine glasses to the table and then, after opening the wine, pour a respectable amount of wine in each person’s glass. Maybe a finger, maybe two.

We didn’t do that. Coming from the glass half full school of life, we filled those buckets right up to the halfway mark. Still half a glass of wine, right? Who can find fault with half a glass of wine?

When my mother-in-law was dying and my beloved job was turning…