river – Innerdialects

_{^{Today, outside her old School, our lil girl and I}}

I had made an error! Wrote my own name wrong in an important document; let’s spare you the details.In the half hour, we seriously request School Admin to bear the burden of an errant momma’s mistake, oh no I couldn’t do the Legal route, I’ve never even seen a Judge, like in a court room, help. They finally look me in the eye with compassion, I could hug the lady but she’s wearing the steel armor of School Admins, though with a tender smile that says this document is a School leaving certificate and will need endorsement by the State, so. I can’t imagine anyone more powered than the young lady in powder blue sari and curled bun at neck nape. She could run for Prime Minister; I’d have melted by now at a momma’s misery, though she’s right y’know. Mercy & justice meet and kiss as I finally exhale: they are going to “see what they can do.”

Yessssss’m. Hadn’t I prayed just this morning, and hadn’t the God of Moses Himself told me this was a Red sea, but it could part at the power of prayer? Did I have the faith of even a mustard seed? Maybe. Maybe a hundredth of a mustard seed, a shrunk one!

As we leave school campus, there are teachers and bus driver who chat with Kitsy; School Principal is an angel, National Treasure I’m telling you. They didn’t want to send me away with a big No, they were kind.

When last had an Academic Institution spent that much time explaining a tangle?

Yea or nay, Judge, no Judge, whatever route this takes, I love these people who felt my heart pulse in my ears.

Hmm, things like this still make me turn into undiluted pulp. Like when their school socks, or shirt had a stain; when homework was not done, a lunch box missing, ugh, bus pass misplaced, a text book lost.

Old familiar feelings run through me, like lost sheep returning home. These were / are simpler troubles compared to the monsters staring us down this day and age: neighbor nukes, pandies( pandemics), bills in parliament… Ouch prices of this and that.

I’m resting, enjoying the panic of years that gently eased themselves out of our schedules: early morning frenzy between kitchen and front door, ribbons, badges, dog eared books and excited kids running back home with news they had to spill before properly getting off the bus…

Kitsy and I head back home as she exhales, “Oh Ma!”

Two words she uses on a whole variety of occasions; today it is wreathed in a peace I so admire in her. She’s a strong girl; where’d these kids learn to be so composed and calm while I’m swinging off the earth in great big arcs?!

we grin without words, at the way I am, then discuss how being a mom (and daughter) is being a mountain mid valley, a desert in an oasis and vice versa, a river, a drought, an ocean, an island, a forest, a volcano and a mighty rain fall all in one.

We have momos, a bowl of Thai soup.

“Ma, my treat,” she says. What can I say.

She wants to be loved like every other New Year, and I hesitate to call her good: I hesitate to say a nice word just in case it contrasts with something in the Headlines tomorrow: but then, the Still Small Voice inside me that urged the dusk to light up my holiday yard, It says, “Year of Harvest’, so

**Our captures@ Prakruthi Farms,Bangalore**.

So here we are, another brand new Baby wailing to be fed, unwrapped, walked…. Um, stuck between a sigh and a smile; Jan 2nd feels like dew in fallen leaves: feels like health sneaking back in my bones, like summer in winter, like new ways to sit, walk, run, stand, be still, hush, God is in His heavens,all’s well. You don’t fake a good feeling. Its too late to fake much anymore. Not this time around, where we step into another 365….., what will it be?

I want to wish you the best year you’ve ever ever had, (said that to a friend and she sniffed loudly. Like it couldn’t be. She needed a new house and funds to run it. She needed everything humans need to run secure… but in a minute she grinned on the phone, as if she’d given herself permission to have the kind of year she needed, and I’m giving myself that permit too) –

“Choose life!” God always said, in His great Book we tend to blame for all our errors – the Bible. Some of us read old comics,for comfort, or Sudoku or Horoscope and the stars. We just want to heal, when no one’s watching we do just about anything to heal from things we are not healing in.

I’m looking forward to cold days turning warm in the light of days healing. Nice, you say. Um hm. Yes. There never was a better time as this one to be grateful for every miniscule and large detail here on earth. Never been a year where we looked beyond into the non material. Here we missed each other, we fell in love all over again with market places we shuddered at: we missed the way our morning papers fell at our door and the steps of the newsboy spiraling down away out past our gates where the jasmine seller woke up street after street of flower buyers; oh and dogs, they were silent too, like Christmas so quiet you could hear the sheep in old Christmas cards breathe! We gazed at stars and memorized each others faces,even politicians’ (and priests’ we remembered from churches now with locked down altars). We did not worry about lip gloss, we still aren’t, we mask new fears with new words; “..be practical, we must go out. We aren’t hermits,” but now we got used to sanitizing our tomatoes and phones. We are a Changed Race, we cannot go back to most things we did last year today, and I’m betting we are wiser, kinder,slower, sweeter,more giving, less fussy about toenails. We got used to pajamas at 12 noon, we understand Time better. Maybe.

What’s to be afraid of? Aunt Jena wears Psalm 91 like an armor; Minki eats spinach like Popeye and she a carnivorous being, now singing anthems to lemon and ginger brew first thing every morning, ah, inhalation too. And skull rinsing gargling, sounds like burglar alarms. No one’s laughing. We are waiting, for what exactly – is hard to say: for vaccines? For Life as it was? For what it can be, should be? Waiting for Immunities; for ourselves to wake from a nightmare that is still not inactive….

never the less, its a whole new year- the old has gone, the sky never felt this blue, the stars this wide eyed. Go to the country side, meet new people, a farm, a river, trees, choose Life, eat well, rest, pray, read His Word, drink His dew falling like gentle rain at dawn where an old woman named Thayi cooks you a hot pot of Forgotten foods. Ok I’m no promotional Blogger, but this Farm deserves mention for inspiring this Post!

Resolutions ? Yes, a huge one – to appreciate nice people in particular and to be grateful to God for making them! (Wish I’d taken more photographs, but that’s the way it is with a good day- you are not thinking of surface tension. You plunge in a river, you climb a tree, you scrape a knee, you kiss a scowl away! Life arrives differently, you bask in a new flurry of beginnings like a child happy about new socks to school never mind worries about homework).

I’m saying out loud Choose Life, I’m stealing my Maker’s line. He said it first. He knew we’d be making choices, not necessarily nice ones. So He makes years go round and round like a Relay race. This time around I’m not letting one day go by without paying attention to detail. This time around, is there really a choice ….to not choose?

Am attaching a👇🏼 must read by 17 yr old Gabriela and she’s good!

https://createbytheword.wordpress.com/2021/01/01/the-crux-of-the-matter/