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“Maybe the trouble is that the shape of life is elastic…”

Ongoingness Sarah Manguso

That it bends and folds to the experience of time. Like a band, it survives on tension, loyal and slave to it. It will contort into any position, afraid of being flat and unuseful, tucked in an empty drawer somewhere. The irony is that they all end up in some drawer, or trash bag, deep in molding fruits and leftover dinners. Elastics have a shelf life. Overused, their strength weakens, their tensions giving away, slowly, imperceptibly, into slack.

She looks at her bare feet at the end of the bed. The itchy hospital blanket exposing the mobility she cannot use. She’s become the opposite of elastic, her life resembling more of those bands that used to pop with color and possibility but no longer have the strength to hold anything together.

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In case you need further info- perfect either way. http://swearingatmotorists.net/post/102801019063/the-story-behind-the-mike-postalakis-directed

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Happy birthday to this beauty: Thank you for teaching me to be a better person/mother/artist. I am forever indebted to you.

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A family that eats ice cream together, stays together🍦😉

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For the last three years, a part of every May Day was spent celebrating a little boy he has known for almost all of his life (give or take six months). How special that he has known someone that long and I hope will continue to say so well into adolescence, adulthood and beyond. Watching him jam on the piano with his twist to classical music (always with the flair of his favorite band #theramones ) pulls me to the side of happiness. Happy to have taken that long walk to the main station, which started a friendship that united two little boys, their younger brothers, and what I hope to be years and years celebrating the first of May with a friend that I keep close to my heart.

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After a long day involving emergency doc appointments with a feverish toddler, I had a gift waiting for me in front of my door. I am thankful to Ted kessler for his enthusiasm in first publishing my story on www.myoldman.org , then to my delight choosing it as a contribution for his book due out this May. Watching my little ones tearing open a package that contained a book with my published story in it was a moment I'd like to hold on to for a little while longer.

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Much to your chagrin *I am breaking the cycle* I'm saving my children Keeping the light in their eyes glowing Never allowing them to reach out And touch absence Much to your chagrin *I am capable of love* A stronger person Than you ever was Having lost the life support, essential I grew from concrete, unsupported Much to your chagrin *I am not you* And my children And children's children Will never be too

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Year 5: Two sets of hands, two baskets, two of everything.

[npr]

There’s a funny thing about the future tense: It’s all but impossible to deny. Take any verb, append the little word “will” to the front of it, and suddenly, you’ve got a proposition that’s awfully tough to knock down. I will write, I will act, I will be — until the proposed moment comes along, until we find out, one way or the other, whether I have in fact done as promised, the possibility I will replenishes every time I speak it.

It’s as if, through sheer force of “will,” we can achieve anything of our choosing.

A Quarter-Life Crisis: When You Let Go Of ‘I Will,’ What’s Next?

Image: Robbie Porter/Getty Images/Ikon Images

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"...it could seem that achieving your dreams was a simple matter of conjugation. Like problems on a grammar exercise, you will take care is them when you get to them."

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Strawberry meringue birthday cake for a special man who has helped me create our family of four.

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Sometimes I feel like this tree-bare and gnarled, reaching and grasping in all but one direction. I see the dark cloud hovering over my shoulder, shading a side of me. And sometimes I see the blue, clarity, an unblemished horizon with possibilities unlimited. Most times I'm straddling the middle, weak for the darkness.

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"It seems success takes you away from what you know, he said, while failure condemns you to it". Outline By Rachel Cusk

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There's an audience when this one pulls himself up on shaky legs. The road is not clear, he must duck and dodge, hold steady to an older brother running circles out of excitement. He's calm as he takes his first step, one parent waiting on the other end with open arms, the other behind him yelling encouraging words. You learn that one must take quick first steps to keep the balance, only the old can take their time. I wear a crooked smile, my ears tuning out the cheers. He's passed from babyhood, officially toddling into the future, to places beyond my grasp and bosom. In my happiness, I see the empty wooden hallway floor where his bare feet have left behind. Vacant, it lays naked before me and after him. He resembles us now, a human walking on two feet, a capable being with potential. It's sort of a goodbye, leaving the ground to walk on the earth. One can be ambivalent about progress. Halfway to his father he looks back, his baby eyes reassuring me that yes he still needs me. I keep my hands clapping, careful not to let my pleading show, knowing the importance of allowing him to grow.

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Counting down the days now

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"Lots of life decisions are made that way: choices are revealed by default, answers arrived at far more passively than we might expect." A reminder to make your decisions proactively.

The Merry Recluse by Caroline Knapp

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"As the baby might say to its mother, we might say to death: I forget you, but you remember me".

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You are so sure about how the world is, that you take a nap, content. Then you wake up and the world looks different.