Cherry Tree Creature

a poem for and some notes on the grief before grief; and a request

"I cry when I hang up with my grandmother. 
My mormor. 
My Mothers mother. 
Mor mor 
More More more more.
More time? I love her. I can't help it. I like her too. We decided once, that if we were not grandchild and grandmother that we would still have been friends. We would have met on the train, maybe to Copenhagen? and sat across from each other and struck up conversation and decide that it was time for a coffee and take the long walk up to the coffee car together for a snack. 
and from then on be dear friends. 

I am with her when I take a quick shower, aware of the price of water.
I am with her when I hang my laundry on the drying umbrella. 
I am with her often. putzing and fiddling and surrounding myself with small sentimental things. She swears she's not sentimental. That she's a little cold perhaps. Too matter of fact. She's a rotten liar. She scolds me when I cry when we hug goodbye after a long trip. She would threaten to toss me out the window if she read this. I can't help it. I like her. 

All too aware of mortality, I am the daughter of a nurse who is the daughter of a nurse who is the daughter of a rain cloud. The first all-American girl. Desperately not all American. Foreign in first name and first steps. A cherry tree creature. 

Do I write about the poem or just leave it here?

I think I’d like to write.

My mother and I were discussing pre-mourning. Grief before grief. The waves that come when you face mortality.

Two of my grandfathers died in the house I grew up in, in the same room, ten years apart.

My mother is a hospice nurse. My Mormor was a nurse for fifty years. Death is not something we skirt around. I think here there is a nugget of [do I dare call it wisdom?] perhaps not. Here is the thought. Be Here Now. Everyone you have ever or will ever love will die, some you will be prepared for, some you will not.

The sadness is a gift

The grief before the grief is a guiding light

The waves that remind me that the moment between the waves is the best place to pick up sea glass.

My grandmother does not want to write out her life story or record memories into voice notes, I will not gather every ounce of information that I crave. But I get to hear about what she’s making for dinner every time we talk, and I wear the socks she made me instead of tucking them into a box, and I can take my grief and turn it into saying “ I love you” the second I feel it for someone, to forgive hurts and send folks on their way with as much care as I can muster, to plant fruit trees in a rental house because we are all dying all the time and it is all so small and so big at the same time and at the end of it all we’re just pebbles.

[ a note for you and for myself: this newsletter is pure self-indulgence, and occasionally I need to remind myself of that, to give me permission to write and share. I feel the urge to apologize that I am not writing for you, but that simply is not what I ever set out to do here. Wonderful, got that out of my system.]

Also, I have stepped deeper into my dedication to this writing, and am deep into the editing phase of my first book of poems. If you like what I am doing, and might even want more, could I ask you to share it? a snippet? a blurb? text it to a friend who might also like it. Link it to your mom? [ but only if she’s a cool mom]

I’d like to be perceived and very much would like not to be perceived which is a sentiment shared by most people who write about the personal.

But also, I’d eventually like to make enough money off my writing to fund my gardening habit and blueberry bushes are like $15 bucks minimum.

So that’s my ask. Thanks, friends. Love youuu.