so this is summer

sticky, the three mile walk home tonight. reminded me of what i love, the heat in darkness, the humid damp sticking to skin, smells of flourishing green, mulberry trees, people sitting outside, laughing.

this walk was different though. fireworks on display for thirty solid minutes, echoing off downtown buildings, reflecting in tall windows, the sky an aftermath of fire.

i wanted to think of myself, i wanted to think about what this aloneness makes of me. tried calling friends instead, then family. six calls, no answer. it's saturday night but days blur. had to check the calendar to be sure.

i wanted to think of myself but i thought about her, so young. the parental inclinations rise but quickly disintegrate. i want to protect her but i am missing important identity arguments. still.

at the gathering, which was like no other i'd been invited to, intimate and emotional in a new way and i too am a participant (despite, again, the identity arguments). i too feel responsible for her care, feel responsible and so rage against the violence that put her at the center of this. i want to protect her and everyone that came before and will come after. we all know this is not the end of the story. justice near the core of this pain, what its lack does and undoes.

tonight sparks protectiveness in the older ones, the actual parents, and in this case, coincidentally those with some status, wealth, institutional sway. i am not naive, i know their struggles are so enormously different than mine. i catch another's eyes amidst the amplified exchanges, know we are hearing the same nerve pressed, though felt in our own distinct ways. respectability gets us nowhere, those politics leaning towards the system like an invitation to be swallowed. yet they too, must stay in the middle of the room, they are part of the landscape, desire. we talk daughters and granddaughters and peers. in obvious fashion, one male voice positions itself highest, talks loudest, interrupts, drones on and on.

walking home, trying to think of myself, thinking of her. then thinking of two others, spirits without bodies. i look for them everywhere: bright neon signs at the museum, booming from the southern lake, patterned shadows of fence, sleeping orange day lilies. how can i protect them? i cannot.

i entered the empty locked house, walked up the stairs, shin splints. suddenly! the lightning and thunder at once, so close. rain sweeping through windows into the rooms.

back down to the door, i yell for gus in the sudden storm. he does not come, my voice does not carry, the downpour is too loud. i cannot protect even the smallest ones, the one i am responsible to, and for. quickly i shut all east-facing windows, then the northern ones.

so i have protected myself without knowing, just barely made it inside, unaware of the weather on my heels. i am lucky this time.

* * *

the storm has blown, another day has turned with the hour. my fur-soaked cat is back, full of affection. everything outside drips in excess, the stickiness has subsided with a long cool breezy moan.

again i sit with tobacco, days beyond my self-imposed limitation. i am not yet ready to let go of certain things. this seems obvious.

on the porch, i try again to think of myself. try to write to myself. for myself.

* * *

here is what i remember:

pregnancy. my body's rejection. self turned inward, unwilling.

i remember the blood exiting me, so solid, an egg.

before that, in the bath, a metaphysical conversation. why this and why now?

two years ago, i heard it clearly. i want to think of myself. yet.

thinking of myself always points me to others, so much to offer. but not this way, not like this.

i think of myself now and am struck. urges: to shelter, guide, protect, nurture. to mentor, care, extend, grow with. it is not biological, not premised on shared blood. no, i want deeply to be of use, to stretch myself differently, to defy the conventions and expectations of notions like body or family or love.

i don't want to think of myself, really.
right there, the way out unfolds.

i want to give whatever i can, i want to foster others. i want to say the longest, biggest YES that i can imagine. i want to be a parent.

!!!!!!