a goldfinch, a sidewalk, a gentle nudge.
dispatch from smith street.
On the walk home from school a few weeks ago, Faye nearly stepped on a goldfinch. The tiny bird was already dead, a perfect specimen stiff on a steel cellar door. We were tripping along the sidewalk in a group of siblings and friends with scooters and backpacks and onigiri procured for the long walk home after play rehearsal. We’d all stayed late in the schoolyard to get out extra wiggles and get in more time with each other. Our animal need for togetherness and movement trumping dinner and homework and reasonable adherence to weekday obligations.
Lauren saved Faye from stepping on the bird. She reached out her hands and pulled her back by the shoulders, steering her away from the sickening shiver, the thick, nauseating wave that making contact with something so recently alive, so impossibly small and beautiful would have sent down her spine and into her belly.
I’ve been thinking of Lauren’s shoulder steer and the reflexive aid we—or earthly angels like Lauren, anyway—provide to the living around us. The silent guidance that sets us down an infinitesimally different path. The faintest touch that alters a minute or a day or an entire lifetime. We can’t always be there to offer a protective nudge. No soft redirecting was available to keep the goldfinch from flying headlong into the plate glass window of the bakery, or, later, to stop Silas from skinning his knee. Sometimes the circumstances are simply not in our favor and maybe more often there are systems and shackles and heaving structures designed to prevent us from extending this care or receiving it. But when we do, with luck and small effort, there’s gratitude in abundance.
digests from elsewhere.
Habit Shift: Taking Tender Care (Of Me)
On Monday I had my first gynecological exam since Calder was an infant. It was over before I realized it and I hardly felt a thing so I’m glad I avoided it for three years... Tomorrow I’m getting my hair cut. I’m thinking I’ll cut my bangs short again because I could use something meaningless to fuss with. I’ve been exercising. Yes, I’m a human being with a body.
Cataloguing efforts to pay a bit more attention to the state of my very nearly thirty-nine year-old body.
“Like that new tree pit?” A neighbor called to me through the open window of the car he was parking and stretched across the passenger seat to wag his finger toward the sidewalk. “Hold on, lemme park.” His tires rubbed against the stone curb and he cut the engine with one wheel still hovering between street and sidewalk.
A new camera, an old neighbor, and a walk around the block.
Organizing with Toilet Paper Rolls [A sponsored post with PlantPaper]
Toilet paper is a thing our family uses on a daily basis. Some of us, still learning the ins-and-outs of managing personal hygiene, use more of it than others, but we generally try to be mindful about it being an inherently wasteful product and to use it sparingly and thoughtfully.
Toilet paper tubes as unsung organizing superheroes, plus the code RMTL25 for new subscribers wanting 25% off their first order of some very fine rolls.
We harvested four tiny radishes from our window box garden this week. They were yanked from the dirt before being strictly ready for pulling and eaten with an enthusiasm reserved exclusively for children who have witnessed the small miracle of watching a plant grow from seed.
A springtime daydream featuring Camille Dungy’s lovely new book, a blousy crop top, and…utility pants.
We went through the pile of toddler-sized clothes we’d saved from our older kids and culled from our stash what we thought might be useful or wearable…holey-kneed cotton gauze pants that could get a second lease on life if lopped into shorts…
Thoughts on mending clothes (plus, an attempt to fix a blown-out bum).
one great suit:
A new bathing suit from Merrick Maria, made by hand in the tiny, self-built studio of Lily Smith, and cut from a body-hugging dream of suede scuba material.
The last shop opening of the season starts at 9 am PST on June 10, 2023. Sign up on the site to get on the list for the access code to place your order. (And explore the site to get a sense of the size and cut that might work for you! Every body welcome.)
yessss the mending post i needed!
What are the odds that I wrote about the very same Lauren in my (first) Substack today? For me, it was her very excellent texts that sustain me. Let's throw her a party!