Make good decisions

May we all listen to our own wise words.

Of the five events

Scheduled for today

I may do two,

If I can be truly present

For two.

If not

It’s down to one.

My schedule

Is no longer color-coded.

I learn to make

Good decisions.

I remember the parent advice

I gave to my children

As they headed out the door

Make good decisions

I would say

I will

They would say.

Make good decisions

I tell myself.

Good advice

I think.

I hear about the families

Families. We all have them.

I hear about the families:

The spouse

The children

The parents

The grandparents

The distant difficult relative

Who only appears

At Thanksgiving

Along with the turkey.

Hour after hour,

I hear about the families.

It is amazing

We all have them

Or people like them

They are woven with strands

Of similar DNA

If we look closely

We can see it

The blink of an eye

The tilt of the head

The turn of a phrase.

Some appear nightly

Some only at Thanksgiving

Along with the turkey.

I hear about the families

The client who did not

Want to meet with me:

I reminded him of a particular aunt

He preferred not to see.

He changed his mind.

I am grateful.

One more step

And so it continues.  I watch my friends drop their children off at college.  I think we*ll be doing the same with our second child same time next fall.  Right now it*s the 250-500 word essay for the Common Application.  This is something which did not exist when our son applied.  Then again this child writes her own book, even as the first one did.  It does not fit in 250-500 words.  No one can write their book in 250-500 words.

Every day brings one more step

In letting go.

At Christmas

His senior year

In high school

Our son gave my beloved and me

A book on parents

Letting go

Of grown children.

Every parent

Every child

Writes his own book,

Writes her own book.

Everyone

Has advice to give

The other.

Still

The letting go happens

One step at a time.

This advice

Is not in book form.

This advice I think
May even be

Universal.

Best parent award

I remember that it*s all about teamwork.  I also remember that everything is not a competition.  I seem to need regular reminders.  I am prone to forget.

Will I be the parent

Who wins

The best parent contest?

The thought crosses my mind

As I drive my daughter to school

Her luggage in the back.

She leaves for France

After school           

On a bus

To the airport.

Parents may follow the bus

To the airport

If they so choose.

Oh yes a friend needs to be picked up

On the way to school.

Standing in the driveway

The friend*s father promises

To drop an umbrella off

At 1:30

Before said friend

Leaves

On the bus.

Did she bring an umbrella?

My beloved asks.

She will need an umbrella.

As I write this a text arrives

For allergy medication.

My beloved unearths

An umbrella

To accompany the antihistamine.

As a team

We may win

The best parent award.

Sway

It seems it*s not only parents that sway by way of calming their babies.  I notice it sometimes in others, sometimes in myself, sometimes in the mentally ill.  It seems to come from somewhere way back as our genes were formed.

Years ago I stood

In back of a church

In Ypsilanti,

Baby boy in my arms.

I swayed

As mothers do

As fathers do.

It seems

An automatic

Calming sway

Arrives at birth.

The man in the pew

Across the aisle

Rocked and swayed.

There was no baby,

No wind,

No music.

In the pauses I heard

His whisper

As he swayed.

Now I think he may have been

Schizophrenic.

Today we stood in back

As ushers.

We watched children,

Parents,

Old people, young.

One woman swayed in the back pew,

New babe

In arms.

Another man

Two pews up

Swayed in rhythm

To nothing I could hear or see.

Now I wonder if there might be

A universal calming sway

Installed in us

From the very beginning;

If perhaps

We can re-calibrate our ears

Our eyes

Our hips

To rock from one side

To the other

And back again;

To remember

The sway.