laughter & tears

first you laugh sincerely

It was his first birthday, he wore the hat and mittens I made for him - and his daddy tossed him in the leaves! He actually(according to all biased eyewitnesses) loved it. Someone snapped this cellphone picture for me. We really wanted to be with him on that important day last Friday, but it was not to be. Instead, I'm editing the last papers due for class, watching the video of Dante dancing at his birthday party (dancing!), and knitting in every spare moment in preparation for the craft fair looming. It didn't help my schedule to decide a few days ago that I absolutely needed felted bags and pulled from my overtaxed brain cells the pattern for the drawstring bags I made a couple of years ago. I started in on them immediately and at this moment, the felted pieces of two bags are drying and I'm working on a third.

Poet Leslie Ullman is sharing booth space with me and we're looking forward to spending time visiting, gossiping, maybe even sharing poetry with during the lulls (if there are any). Oh, and uh, eating chocolate in all its forms. Whether it's Xmas M&Ms or good organic dark, we're there.

And so are our socks and necklaces... (baby sock shown)...

life again
what happens when you're making other plans
It's not just the preparations and editing and other stuff that's shadowing my life right now. A few days ago I learned that the husband of an extended family member I've known since she was eight years old, took his life. A handsome robust man in his late 40's with sons, a daughter, a wife he loved. So why? At this time, no one seems to know.An unexpected, unexplained event sends family and friends reeling. This is the fourth suicide to indirectly touch my life since July. I don't know how to wrap my mind around this. Is it a phenomenon? A trend? And, if so, what's it all about? And why do I hear an elderly friend talking euthanasia and someone much younger questioning why he should go on living?

and on it goes
The book Love  & Death Greatest Hits just won the New Mexico Book Award for poetry. A few months ago I highlighted the authors, Renee Gregorio, Joan Logghe (poet laureate of Santa Fe), and Miriam Sagan. They gave a sold out reading for SOMOS. Congratulations to each of them and to Tres Chicas Books. It's a good read, real (reeling) with humor and sadness. Life again.

I want to be perfect for your grief
mourn sixty times less than you do
for you are the widow. As God gave
us honey as a sixtieth of prophecy
sleep as one sixtieth of death.
                                (excerpt from Grief's Entitlement by Joan Logghe)