He has no time for poetry, or predilection for it

The nuance, the play, that silly obsession with the color or the shape

It’s all angles and concrete for him, a direct correlation between input and output

For there are grievances to be filed and mockeries to be offended by

Injustice upon injustice placed on the mantle, forefront and center, to be admired and derided and regarded just so

He’s not a bad man, just one who has been blind sided one time too many

To see things for what they are

Did I dream this?
The sand underneath the fingernail
The sound of a wave crushed by a lazy jetty
Seagulls in the distance race the sun
And the children were beside me
They were tumbling at play
They were suddenly grown walking at the bite of the sea
And you leaned against me
And you sought my hand
And you sighed
We were ready for rest
We were ready to start it all over again

Did I dream this?
Sunlight through a quiet room, it caught you by the kitchen, by the dining room, by the bay window
You were standing, you were reading, something with your hands
And I want to say it was quiet, I want to say I heard something that mattered
But I couldn’t stop looking, I was in the sun with you
The looking and the breath, the place where your hair fell
And I can’t say it was beautiful because of the sound
I didn’t want to interrupt the silence
And fill it up with something other than what it was

Did I dream this?
The terror of time and it’s relentless pace
The impeccable minute where nothing happens
And the unforgiving progress here on the skin
The ache of a body losing yet another degree of freedom
Night comes too soon but exhaustion is never fast enough
Barrel into sleep with the thought of a memory I do not want to have

Perhaps this is my life’s work, a smattering of thoughts tossed into what I should be forgetting

I struggle with who I am.
And it’s because there is no more ‘who will I be?’
Or ‘who can I be?’
All the possibility has worn itself out, a thread I forgot to hold on to.
It was all going too fast. I was going too fast.
Careening to avoid the headlights.
Dodging and weaving to a beat whose steps I was learning. Shadowboxing for the big fight.
Only to realize now the arena is empty.
And I am tired, oh so tired.

I have only a handful of memories of her, spread apart by decades. Always sunny, I could barely keep up when she spoke to me. I can see the resemblance, how she looked like this sister or this brother. I could hear the wit and the sharp tongue. I understood that much. But I can only count these memories in one hand, and to be honest with you that’s what breaks me. You all lived with her. You all saw her from time to time. This is not to say it was ever enough, it’s never enough, there’s never enough time. But at least those times were in the dozens. I have this one photograph where our aunt wasn’t really there at all. And now she’s gone. Time is a ruthless beast.

 my love,

where’s the snow my love? where’s the snow?

the last three months have been a whirlwind. the summer ended, you and the kids went back to school. for a brief time it was a little sad and empty, at least the rhythm and grind filled in that gap. suddenly we were scrambling for candy and before we even put away the pumpkin head from our porch, we were driving out for thanksgiving. not a week later, christmas.

how is this happening? can you make it stop? it’s too quick, too fast, I want to breathe. we were driving to the mall the other day, the kids and I, it was good, solid, slow. we weaved our way through the mall, teased each other, found a place to sit, sifted through stores, jammed up in traffic trying to escape. but there was a moment as we neared home, a song came on, and the kids began to sing. each with their own unique frequency of delight, and I said to myself, remember this, I want to stay right here, in this moment and the memory of it that will come later. I want to radiate between the living and the memory of living it. to pan out and capture it all, to hear the echo of it, to be the chamber that holds it and keeps it outside of time.

the scattered years where we couldn’t open the door to the backyard. where we went to sleep and could see the harsh line that separated the street from the curb only to awake in pure cotton from door to door. or the nights where each snowflake stripped the world of all sound and buried it in watchful silence. we would look out the window and gasp but it couldn’t be heard. we backed away with relief. It was going to be a good day. a full day. a day without end. In pajamas, didn’t they still wear pajamas? or perhaps we would make snow angels. it didn’t matter, it was quiet. we could rest easy. time had stopped. If only to be there again and in the memory of it again. it’s hard to explain, to be present but also remembering the present. that sublime moment where you realize this, this is worth living and living over again.

where’s the snow my love? where’s the snow?

love, always

me

my love,

How do you do it, enter a room and make it seem the sun has sighed? You enter a room and everything changes, you enter a room and everything comes into focus? You dash about, you pause, you fix this, add to it, remind yourself of the next step, move on again. And any direction you go, every place you arrive, you belong. It softens, it accepts you, yearns for you, it becomes home. Not “a home” but home. As if you were always already there. A parking lot at an airport, a horse carriage ride in central park, an apartment in Albany, a hotel in Paris, a casino in Atlantic City, a house that we could not buy. Anywhere, everywhere. It isn’t so much it accepts you, but it is healed. You heal the rough edges, the dings, the nicks, the pock marks. I cannot bear to live in a world where the sun does not find you. I cannot bear to be in a world without your grace. I cannot bear to be anywhere without you. I cannot bear to live a life without you breathing life into it

Love,

me

Dear Michael,

You terrify me. Don’t know who else to put it, don’t know how else I can say it. Let me tell you a brief little story:

As you know, or might remember, I used to smoke. Not a lot, half a pack a day. Terrible habit, the kind that will kill you. And don’t tell me vaping is smoking because it isn’t. it doesn’t compare. When you smoke you literally feel something in your lungs stopping you from getting enough air. But I loved it, it made me cool, it was romantic: I was killing myself slowly. This is the sort of stupid thing, as a teenager, right about your age, I used to think. Anyway, when I started dating your mother, she said the cigarettes bothered her. So I quit, instantly, I was in love, this was the woman of dreams. Fast forward seven years, we felt very pressured to get married and well, I wasn’t making much money and somehow I had to make it, and I started smoking again. Irony right? Can’t afford to get married but you can afford some cancer-sticks. Anyway. Fast forward a year, Mommy was preggers and we found out it was a girl. I insta-quit. No question. Got myself some Nicorette and chewed away. Now the time in between her and you, I wont get into, but it was rough, but I was smokeless nonetheless.

Until we found out our next child, you, was going to be a boy and yes, right away, I went to the 7/11 and picked up a pack. You see, before I even knew you, I was afraid of you. What kind of father was I going to be not having grown up with one? The only father figures I knew in my early years were uncles that had little time for me and even less pity. The father I did know, well, you’ve heard the stories. I never learned how to play catch, I could barely dribble a basketball. The things I was good at was football which, when you think about it, was easy: grab the ball with two hands and plow through anyone that got in your way. I was already husky by the time I was 5. And handball, which was basically slapping a small ball and making other people run around instead. I remember sitting on the porch and thinking to myself, I have nothing to give this kid, this boy, my son. The only thing I knew was violence and disappointment. Of not measuring up to the other boys in the neighborhood with messed up ideas of being macho, being bad ass, being tough.

This is the me you knew when you came into the world, into our world, into my world. A father who didn’t know who to be a man, let alone pass down anything worthwhile to a son. I did not, and still do not, know how to connect. To be frank with you, it might not seem this way, but I have no idea what I’m doing, I only know where I went wrong and how I don’t want you to make the same mistakes. How people hurt me and how I don’t want anyone to hurt you. But you were precious and delightful, stalwart and stubborn. A miracle to a great degree. You were both quiet but would burst on a dime. Much the same way you are today. Like I had said, you’re heart was just too big for your body. Because every day you are more and more like me, in good ways, in better ways, so much so that it’s not like me at all. You’re you, evolving into something greater. Sharp and insightful, cautious but silly. I love everything you are becoming.

Done stop scaring me.

Love, always,
me

dear ioanna, first born,

daughter of mine, heir to my neurotic obsession with human behavior and near impossible to contain depths of empathy, what am I to do with you, with my inability to let you go and yet my insistence on pushing you further and further out into the world?

this year has been tumultuous. So much has changed, nothing has changed. You’ve left and everything has changed. You’ve left and nothing has changed. And I struggle with the anxieties and pride of you having left. I struggle with the delight and trepidation of when you come home. But this isn’t home. Home is over there. But over there isn’t home either, it’s over here. I wonder if you are ok, I fully imagine all the horrible things that could happen in order for them to not happen. I try not to imagine your return. I try to imagine desperately your life outside of my care. I imagine an apartment in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, all the places but never home. I try, but it sneaks in, like a mouse finding a crack in the foundation and wiggles its way into someplace warm and safe. It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair to see you grow and embrace the world with such wonder and confidence. It isn’t fair that in order for you to be all the things you want and are meant to be has to be at away from us. It’s not fair that this is the cost to see you flourish.

But I’m willing to pay it, even at a distance.

love, always,
me

my love,

it is so difficult to explain, this life

on the one hand, there is worry and stress and planning and juggling and conflict and disappointment and noise and hardship and grind

on the other, on the other there is tenderness, laughter, kindness, consolation, quiet, music, excitement, confidence, trust, understanding and love. above all else, the safety of love, the comfort of love, the warmth of love

i’ve said it hundreds of times: this is not the life I was supposed to live. it was not supposed to be this, bountiful, this full. there wasn’t supposed to be this many people in it. there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in it at all

even I wasn’t supposed to be in it

but then there was you. and you made me real. you made me present. you made me responsible for myself and my life and my living. you made it worth living. you made me worth living

i don’t know how you do it, i don’t know how you, everyday, on any given day, make it delightful. that’s the right word for it

you bring, after everything else, you bring delight

delight, of the light. yes, yes indeed. you are of the light

you are the light in every breath I take and i can’t stop breathing you in

Thio Ari died. I don’t understand the details, the language barrier, the clutter of my memory, I was told he was in ill health. I was told broken hip, I was told maybe cancer, maybe his lungs, over the years. Forgotten. Because I thought he would be there the next time I saw him. But he died, and it sounds like complications from a stroke he had recently. That he couldn’t talk, that he was trapped, and he went. Maybe overnight. Maybe he closed his eyes at some point when no one was looking and a nurse, an orderly, noticed he was gone. Maybe he had company and he was just exhausted waiting for them to leave the room so he could let go without any fanfare or hysteria.

He was my mother’s first cousin. When I was young, he pulled me aside and toured Athens with me, talked to me about Hellenism vs modern Greeks etc. How one thing was not the same as the other and to know the difference between national and ethnic pride. He taught me the legacy of things and how to share it, not horde it for yourself.

69. and I’m right there, 50, and it slams me, bowls me over, right in the middle of the day. Io’s lifetime and that’s it. relive everything I’ve had with them, then gone. And I can’t fathom it, I can’t accept it. I will not die, you will not die, she will not die, we will not grow old, we will remain timeless, and it’s a lie, it’s a lie, it’s a lie. I have yet to see it. yes, wrinkles around the eyes, greys in the beard, slightly at the temple, but the skin, the skin still supple.

But it will happen, it will happen because time has always been the enemy, and I cannot stave it off, I do not want to die but I know I have to. And I don’t know how I want to die, even if it’s, ok, I go to sleep, do I want to know it’s the last time? Do I want to witness it? is it better sudden? but then, is everything in place for them? For her? Will they be ok? When will I know they’ll be ok? When I do know, will that be the time? I can never relax, I cannot die, she cannot die, over and over, you will not die, you must die.