The Day, The Place, The Time

Driving in Julian, coming back from the cold mountain gold mines and their ghosts, our car full of family was motioned to the right by a policeman with a flash light. We banked right and followed the other cars moved off the road, drove up and through winding stretches until delivered back onto the main road. Mr. Curry driving. I craned my neck around, stretched to see, and saw. A body, lying in the middle of the road, covered in yellow tarp. I turned back quickly, met Mr. Curry's eyes. Lola, ever vigilant of the slightest change of atmosphere, peered at me. What is is, Mom? I replied A car accident, sweetie. That's all. That is all. A body in the middle of the road. A cop so shaken up that he screamed angrily at a woman driver, near tears as she maneuvered her car from it's accidental wrong turn, back to the path. I watched the breeze blow gustily over scattered weeds on the dirt parking lot to our right. I looked up at the sky, the brightness and boldness of the sun. Heard the shouts of happy tourists visiting the town of apple pie. Listened to Lola humming and Ever babbling and Ian talking quietly to Mr. Curry. The hot seat of the car on my back. The warm cotton squeeze of socks against my soles. The smell of mountain air. The feel of cold air and hot sun blowsing across my arms and face in a prickling pleasure, the feel of my hair against my ears. The dry skin of my top puckered lip. The pressing of jeans into my stomach. The weight of my breasts against shirt, ready to nurse my baby. The clamor of a flock of birds over our heads as we left the car. This is the day and place and time that a man's life ended, just now, I thought. And I get to go on living.

I keep thinking about that.

Case Number: 11-02174
Name: Rogelio Malihan	City of Residence: San Diego
DOB: 02/07/1958	Gender: Male
Place of Death: 2900 block of SR 79, Julian CA	Place of injury: 2900 block of SR 79, Julian CA
Date/Time of Death: 10/8/2011 12:16:00 PM	Date/Time injury: 10/08/2011 1150
Summary: The decedent a 53-year-old Asian male who resided in a home with his wife and son in the city of San Diego. On 10/08/11, the decedent was riding his motorcycle southbound on the SR 79 along with his son and close friend. The lead bike stopped due to traffic and the decedent had to slam on his breaks and went down, ejecting him into the northbound lane of the highway. Motorcyclist traveling northbound, tried to avoid him but he was struck by one of the motorcyclist. 911 was called and police responded to the location along with medics. Upon arrival, the decedent was found pulseless and apneic with severe trauma. Advanced cardiac life support was initiated but to no avail and death was pronounced. This office was notified and the section of the highway was closed and the scene secured pending my arrival. The examination will be tentatively scheduled for 10/09/11.
Cause of Death/Updated Cause of Death: Blunt force head and chest injuries
Contributing Conditions: None
Manner: Accident
Investigating Agency: CHP - El Cajon	Next of kin notified? Yes

I've Got A Crush On: Hanna

Ian, Mr. Curry and I watched this last Friday night
It is AWESOME
The End

Julian, CA Gold Mines and Mountains

Welcome To My World

Welcome To My World is still selling away at Amazon's Kindle and B&N Nook, and has been
plugged today in Forbes
and here is a review of an essay inside by a fellow blogger and essayist

I hope it keeps selling
It means good things for me
And like everyone
I could use some good things

xo
Maggie May

Being In Love Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry, Johnny Depp

Johnny, I don't think you should have apologized.
You used the word exactly the way it's supposed to be used in inference. To infer.
To infer the idea of being raped,
which does not only mean raped as in physically penetrated
but raped as in pillaged, stolen from
. You said what you meant. You said it like a writer. With passionate description. There is nothing wrong with what you said,
only that some very vocal and well intentioned people insist that
the word raped is theirs now, and they claim it to mean one thing only,
hands off the word raped, apparently.
Hm. The sentence I just wrote was inadvertedly meaningful.
And I'm not sorry.
I'm sorry women are raped every day
and that this world is so confused and scared about what happens to us
we use our emotional and physical energies making a big shitstorm over nothing
when there are somethings that could use our attentions instead.
Like actual rape.
And actual assholes.
Which you are not.

10:00 PM

the evening turns to night.
a tangy darkness, a touch of aubergine.
shadows move richly on soft, deft strokes
into the places most lived on my hands.
i am sitting awake,
in the deeply sleeping home of my family.
my body flutters underneath me.
i run fingers through my hair,
touch the bruise across my thigh.
the heavy root of milky breast
hangs dense and fat over my abdomen.
i sense that i am not my own,
that my body still is hers.
the breeze moves from our screen
across her mouth,
open like the tiny sail
of a boat across the sky.
my baby cries so quietly.
she knows i am already there.

maggie may ethridge
one woman, telling the truth about my life

10 Things You Should Know If You Have A Child In Preschool

1. The number one thing you can do to ensure your child is well taken care of at preschool is to be generous, communicative, patient and kind to your child's preschool teacher. Especially- but not only- when your child is non-verbal, a good relationship with the teacher is essential to understanding your child's day at preschool. Mistakes and miscommunications and problems will happen, but it's how you deal with it that matters. Lead with a smile. Or at least a friendly expression!

2. If you want to know if anything 'important' happened during your child's day at preschool, you have to a) define important to the teacher: tantrums? sleeping/not sleeping at nap? hitting? crying? moping about? Be specific. b) ASK. When a parent day in and day out comes in and out of school not asking how their child's day was or never asking follow up questions to a response of 'mmm OK', we mostly assume you don't really want to know.

3. If you want a complete answer to how your child's day was, be politely receptive to the truth. If every time we tell you, for example, ' She cried a lot today ' you get defensive and angry and blaming toward us, it makes it very hard to give you the whole picture when we talk.

4. Remember that the answer to ' But she/he never does this at home?! ' is almost always
' That's because they are at home. ' Not at preschool, in a much more demanding, noisy, and little people populated environment. Unless you happen to kick it like the Gosselins, you can't expect your child to act the same at home as they do at school. They will likely nap, eat, play and express frustration differently at preschool.

5. If you want us to change something for your child, like a rule, an environment or a response, please do it with the expressed understanding that things can only change so much for one child when there are so many, and offer up a solution that doesn't put an unfair burden on the rest of the class. IE: If your child won't nap at nap time, asking if he/she can silently read while laying down is OK, asking if your child can be taken outside to play is not.

6. Please don't ask us to work on something with your child that you can't or won't back up at home. If you want the paci gone, please don't pop it in their mouth to keep them from crying on the car ride home. It sucks for us, but most importantly, it sucks for your child. They can't adjust to inconsistent rules.

7. Realize that your child is special- just like every other child in the preschool.

8. Your child is going to get bothered by other kids occasionally- a biter, a pincher, a face maker- and at some point, be the one bothering someone else. Remember this when you decide how angry you are that Johnny hit your baby on the hand with a plastic truck. It's crazy humility making when the parent you were hating on in the preschool yard because their child hit yours is now the same one eying you because your child gave them an eighties asymmetrical haircut at nap time.

9. LABEL EVERYTHING

10. Remember to laugh. It's preschool, not college, not even middle school. They are babies, really, so let them be silly and exasperating and energetic and fussy and make mistakes, because that's how they roll. *Down the hill, ripping a big one in their pants the whole way.

Welcome SPONSOR: Novembrin *Hand Made Felt Objects of Desire*

SO, the whole reason November is a Flux Capacitor sponsor is because I saw her store on Etsy, and fell in love. Her skill is undeniable. She takes felt and makes it into objects- usually animals- that positively brim with personality and charm. The details are gorgeous. I traded a mama and baby elephant set and gave them to Lola, who adores and plays with them. They aren't meant to be man handled played, but Lola is nine, so she can gently play. I mean, look at these--

I mean, COME ON. Look at this hedgehog. So cute!!!

Pumpkins for Fall decor

...and this little pair that I want! She also takes requests

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Can I have a safe word? The weight too heavy. There are weights we carry that by their very existence hone and strengthen inside of us a place of resilience we never believed we possessed. I have always been resilient. I remember being Lola's age, in the back of the car as we drove, and my mother telling me I'd worry about Lura if I died, but not you. I know you'd be OK. Since then I have weathered many hardships, sometimes horribly gracelessly, but still- I did it- and found each one- Mr. Curry's bipolar, my horrific panic attacks, my medical ordeal and surgeries, subsequent bankrupt debt, Mr. Curry's loss of business- truly did strengthen me, teach me about navigating pain, fear, relationships. Life. With Dakota I feel only the weightlessness of a void below me. The whistling of air past my face. Having small, happy children apparently made up more of my self-esteem than I realized. Now that I have a tall, unhappy 17 year old, it feels as much about me as it does about him. I say feel. Because I don't know. I'm smart enough- at least- to know I don't know. Nothing else I've encountered- my marriage problems, financial hardships, physical pain- has undermined my sense of self so neatly and cleanly, so simply and swiftly, as my son's struggle. I keep thinking lately about how much shame is attached when we don't feel or think the way we think we should. I am ashamed that what is happening to my son feels so much like it's happening to me. That's not healthy. It may be motherhood, though. It's real. Maybe it's the exact reason why my son is now staying at his grandmother's house, 15 minutes from where we live.Flesh of my flesh.I have scribbled down and recorded many of the sweet and loving things my son has said to me as he grew up. I have loaded books of photos of the two of us, laughing, kissing, hugging. I wonder if I did something so crucially wrong for his temperment and needs that he could not keep his feet on ground. Perhaps another mother- one less loving, maybe, but more beautifully organized, more constant in routine- not! a writer- might have served him better. Kept him safe. When he was small, and then even not so small, and something was scaring him, he would come to me and tell me about it, and we would have a huddle. The two of us would sit and talk it out, and afterward he would tell me, with supreme confidence, Mommy nothing will ever be too much for me, because I have you. How can I let go of that? Where is the letting go door? How do I walk through it?

Sometimes I say as many as six impossible things before breakfast, and here is one: I will let go of this pain. It's not supposed to be mine. It's not happening to me.

A door through a door. I step through his eyes and into him, a particularly female act, and believe I know how he feels, what he thinks, who he is. I do, I do know what I know, and I know it well. It's the rest, the landscape that has formed privately without me over the last few years, that I do not know that I must accept. This is a person now, completely separate from me, and were he safe, were he OK, I could let go perhaps, at a more timidly scheduled pace. But this thing he's struggling with is breaking up all the scheduled stops, and I am not damn well letting go of him while his legs dangle over this void. I am his mother. What that means when he is 17 and fighting something dark, I don't know. I'm learning it.There is a whole family here. Two daughters, another son, a husband, a wife. All here too. I love them. I don't want to and will not allow myself to abandon joy in them; abdicate a 'normal life'. But what is our life then, carrying this with it? How do you make room for something so hard in the pace of a day: the teeth brushing, driving, homework, work, baths, dinnertime talk? Is there room for both pain, fear, hurt and the routine of family life? I don't know what that looks like. Now it seems this bleeds into the most unexpected moments, and suddenly I am crying, and there is the rest of the family, looking at me. Crying, again. In this way I am beginning to feel myself failing, flailing. My husband is tired of this. Cracks are forming in our marriage. The weight. When you don't know what to do, do nothing? I'm quiet now. Waiting for signs, a hand of God, the right book, the right person, the right article.

ps
My husband....a note on him. Sometimes I stand back, and look at him through the years, the changes he's made, the progress, his steady, quiet way of changing, so different than my mad flailings, his introspection so slow and constant at times that it seems infuriatingly still- stagnant, I think meanly at times, when I'm hurt or scared- but it's not still. It is his way of moving forward in life, not mine, and at times when I can get the perspective to stand back and see how hard he's worked on bettering our family, our marriage, then I am deeply touched. I try hard to see what love looks like from the other people in my family, because it doesn't come out the same for each person. Seeing how each person expresses love can be the key to feeling deeply loved. For Ever, it's an open mouthed tongue thrust or a smile so large it looks like it's eating her face. Love!


One woman, telling the truth about my life.