My grandmother.

There is something softening about old age. Age can really change a person, I think, and even though my grandma is changed, in a way she also isn't. Look at that picture, that face. There is a gentleness that radiates from her in her moments of awakeness that shines with a clarity I have known all of my life: gentleness. When she was younger she was kind of oblivious but in a funny way. And throughout it all, gentle. She passed that down to my mother (both the oblivion and gentleness), and I'd like to think some of it got passed along to me too. Funny and strange that she doesn't remember who we are but she still knows to smile for the camera. Smile grandma, smile. I hope she knows happiness.

i feel like
i am walking in no direction.

is no direction a direction?

I'm looking for the sunshine after the rain

I'm looking for the sunshine after the rain
I'm searching for the only thing I knew
I'm digging to find myself in you
On my knees
In the dirt
Only to find that you were right beside me
all along.
I reach for you with my muddy paws
With pools of sweat gathering at my chin.
Drip.
Running down my forehead, into my eyes
where it marries my tears.

As I hug you I smear brown on your white robe
My hair drips salt into yours
I am a mess, but you don't care.
You hug me anyways.

I've been thinking quite a bit recently about motherhood. What it means, what it feels like, what it entails, the importance of it all. And oh, what a responsibility and a gift. I'm trying to pay attention more when my parents cook, when they fix something or make the wrongs right. Yesterday I watched my dad carefully put salmon on the grill, using a tool I had seen countless times before but never bothered to ask about.

"Dad, what is that cage-like thing you put the salmon in called?"
"I think it's called a fish basket."

A fish basket. Things like these, I want to be able to have, to use, to know. Something as simple as making fish on a grill. I want to know this for my child. Funny that in the past I never bothered to know this for myself. But I'd like to know if for the unborn future, to tuck it into a pocket and rediscover it later.

I can't wait to be a mom, but it's a scary thing too you know?