Poetry Friday: Broken Memory

We all have things we regret in our life, scenes we'd replay if we could. I find that often the things that stick in my head like gummy label residue are fairly insignificant, not the big earth-shattering stuff people talk about. I don't regret feel stuck on major moral choices I've made, life direction selections or other headline type options. I can't let go of conversations where I said something I never should have to someone hurting, times when I missed an opportunity to be open with a person I loved and little fabulous jokes I should have shared when I thought of them. Maybe that makes me petty or maybe it just confirms that I'm a details person, but whichever it is...them's the facts.

Today for Poetry Friday I decided to work up a poem idea I've had simmering in my mind for ages. I've been slowly accumulating notes on this specific memory of a childhood argument with my little sister and working on trying to synthesize all the little pieces into a meaningful whole. I often remember the incident whenever I see broken glass. So, there were these poemy bits in my poetry file and then recently, I started reading this fabulous book on parenting and emotion and I felt like it brought the whole topic full circle. I've never been so-filled with hope about emotions and their place in the human experience...read it, you may find yourself welling up compassion for yourself, your parents, your children and all the other people around you who are feeling deeply and being shut down, shut out or pacified. Anyhow...enough from the soapbox.

Here's the poem, dedicated to you, Foxy and here's to healing!

Kid Sister

I regret that time I egged you on,

Taunting you from behind the window

Of the just-slammed kitchen door.

I should have stopped when I saw your color rise,

Saw my muted jeers inflate your rage

And fan it like a maverick breeze.

I never expected that gutsy crash

The slam of pain colliding with anger,

Window glass and your determined knuckles.

There was a blast of explosive shattering,

A war cry from your little, irate lungs and

A sudden, tinkling spray of jagged confetti.

I remember your fist flecked with blood and tears

A long, hard talking to and the sound of the

Clinking scrape as the broom erased the evidence.

I felt superiorly, that I had won because you’d felt

So deeply, been so seething with emotion that your anger

Had shattered into ten million glittering bits of public evidence.

I wish now, that I had been able to step through that window

Cup your chin inside my hands, look into your

Flaming eyes and feel the human, outrage in your soul.

Instead I slammed the kitchen door on your

Budding dignity and silenced your objection

Behind a window, not strong enough to contain it.

I am sorry now, does it still

Count if I am 20 years too late?

If you're a poetry lover, make sure to check out the round-up of other Poetry Friday participants at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

DIY Convenience Food

Today I made 16 burritos, indy wrapped them and stacked them in log piles in the freezer. I need convenience food and this is the first shred of an answer.

Have been thinking about ways to fairly painlessly nip and tuck our budget and one of the things I kept bumping into in my mind was "convenience eating." I know I don't seem like the Lean Cuisine type but every house has nights when dinner or lunch or a snack needs to be ready, instantly and there's no time for scratch cooking slow food. I tried to just use snack items for these times: granola bars, yogurt drinks, nuts, dried fruit...etc. Frankly, they aren't very satisfying and although I have good intentions I find myself saying, "Can we just run by that Thai place?" instead of picking out a granola bar and palming an apple on the way out the door. I wanted a real dinner, not snacky stuff.

We just had a trip to Michigan and back for the Thanksgiving holiday and we'll be doing it again for Christmas. We made amazing time there and back and for a while there I puzzling over and over about what in the world made the trip shorter than usual, both ways! Then I realized what it was. We never stopped to eat. I had the car fully stocked with food items, the boys had books to occupy them and A and I were discussing and reading a book of our own and so we never stopped except to gas up and we used the gas stops as potty breaks too so that meant even less stopping. Convenience food is my new nemesis.Most of the time the food you get on the run is terribly guilt-inducing because its expensive, and it's also extremely low in nutrition. I have been wracking my brain to solve the problem. I want food to stash in the freezer that is good for us but super quick (as in, a minute or two zap in the microwave and then eatable out-of-hand), stuff that tastes good and feels like a real meal.

There have to be other ideas out there...I have a dry brain lately and so the only thing I've come up with so far are these burritos. I was inspired by this blogger's idea and did something similar with ground turkey, black and pinto beans, frozen roasted corn (Trader Joe's is good!) and shredded cheese in whole wheat tortillas. I'd love more possibilities so that I can avoid the monotony of only one back-up plan when the going gets tough. Anybody got any other ideas?

Advent Season

This week Advent began, we pulled the first  of the holiday decorations out of the boxes (albeit waiting on the tree which won't happen until Sunday afternoon) and we got our fruitcake baked and began its bathing schedule. The holidays are in full swing...so much cinnamon scented happiness scattered all about.

I am working on ideas for myriad gifts and thinking about all the little things that we'll be doing between now and our departure for Michigan that will help to add small touches of holiday cheer and a sense of ownership for our own little family traditions. I am caught in a land between being the happy child who goes home to my parent's for Christmas and being the beaming mother who fashions a memorable celebration for her own tiny tots. This is my own little way of appeasing the piece of me that is a bit grouchy about always donning the child cap when I so long to also be the mommy who is mistress of my own celebration. The season between now and Christmas week is all mine to plan and celebrate in. This afternoon, while the oxtail stew was simmering on the stove, the boys and I were putting together a pomander. I am sure there were many cloves squished and dropped on the floor and more than a few sticky fingers, which is somehow just as it should be.

This year my cookie baking will be a simpler affair since the neighbor lady just dropped a note in our mailbox to tell me that one of those fabled cookie exchanges will take place at her house on the 12th. I am still pinching myself over the fabulous good luck that I have been really, truly invited to such a fete. I cannot wait. Now I just have to pick a perfect recipe and whip up my six dozen offerings.

I am going out to the garden next to start snipping boughs off of the offending yews, cluttering the front of the house. I plan to cover the mantle with them and then whirl up a wreath for the front door with a big red bow on it. It will be free, festive and those horrible misshapen bushes will have served a purpose after all. That's the way it should be; may all our little obstacles end up as lively, decorative embellishments.