things i've never said

"it is what it is."

"would i lie to you?"

"because i'm the mom and i say so."

"my bad."

(edited to add) "it's a no-brainer."

rest in peace, april. and thank you, global warming/mother nature, for the soft, unfrozen dirt in our back yard. our pet cemetery includes: two gerbils (murdered*), one poisson (gold colored, long lived), two hermit crabs (with romantic associations, not necessarily to each other), and one sweetheart of a guinea pig.

i work here, and look out this window, and the sunlight is changing, changing. the passing traffic can sound like the ocean if you squint your eyes just right.

this is what happens in my bed after i get up in the morning.



*involuntary manslaughter?

all goes onward and outward

isaac had a feeling that april wasn't well yesterday--it's a little eerie, actually, since many days often go by without him thinking about her at all (i have been the main guinea pig wrangler in this house for a few years now). but yesterday he spent a lot of time petting her and talking to her, and he told me he was pretty sure she'd gone blind. her eyes have had that cataract-y look for some time. she was still shiny and lovely, but when you petted her, you could feel her bony little shoulder blades (or, wait, do guinea pigs have shoulder blades?).

we went out last night to isaac's parent-teacher conference at the shack, and when we came home he found that she was unconscious, breathing so shallowly that he was sure she had already died. we made her a little blanket and stroked her head and said some things to her. she was gone, or very very nearly so, when we went to bed last night.

isaac had just turned ten when he brought april home, and for a time he adored her, and even when he lost interest in small animals kept in cages (it's a complicated relationship when you feel like your pet is a prisoner who lives in a poop-filled house), he loved that little animal. we all did.

she is (maybe) survived by two children (which probably means hundreds of grandchildren and great-grandchildren), and her friend and admirer, minnow.

"The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
        at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
        luckier."

from Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman

a world she has no language for

a dream in which:

•i ask a large group of teenagers in my backyard, very nicely, not to hold an enormous wood chipper over the compost while other teenagers are inserting things (a baseball bat, a lawn chair) into it.
•i go inside only to discover that the guinea pig's cage is open and minnow is standing in front of it, swallowing. i begin to shriek, "april ate minnow!"
•i go back to the mysterious, dark, teenager-filled back yard and find isaac, who is literally like nine feet tall, and i sob, "april ate minnow." he pats me on the head very sweetly.



my dream about time, lucille clifton

farewell, tiny friend

there is a gurgling fish tank in the sunroom now, with one lonely little crab* living in it. her name is margot, and until recently she lived in the environmental science classroom at the learning shack with her friend lobster (also a crab, not a lobster). zoë and max brought them home last week, and tragically, lobster died almost immediately. so there was a somber burial.























i have to admit, i hadn't formed much of an emotional attachment to this crustacean. her death wasn't like that of m. poisson, or the gerbil brothers. wow, we've had a few funerals in this back yard!























*i didn't even bother taking a picture. to be honest, she's not a photogenic pet.