There are matzo balls
and potato kugel
and gefilte fish
which I am told
tastes like fish meatloaf
and four cups of wine
and horseradish too
and a hard-boiled egg
to evoke the cycle of life
but all of this feasting
is not why they recline at the table
like so many rituals,
the meaning must be woken up
with a question
and then your Jewish friend
will explain in a voice
that is both soft
and fiercely proud
that they lean back
on pillows
as a statement:
we are free.
I have been told I am in a rut
and boring and uninspired
but I like to think of my lunch habit
and its one meal on repeat
as a sign of loyalty.
I am not monotonous
but monogamous.
I’m not saying that the variety-lunchers
are more likely to be unfaithful
just that my husband
can rest easy
knowing that I crave
the same thing
every
single
day.
When my daughter burned her hand
on the fireplace
I experienced the emotion
I can never quite name
but happens every time
my children get hurt
which is not alarm
or fear
or even anguish or regret
but something
that I can only describe
as an acute sense
of being swindled
as though I felt sure
I had been sold
a more durable heart.
I am ninety-four.
My body trembles
as the ideas inside me
jostle to get out,
to stay behind,
to be remembered.
But I am not afraid.
My skin is thin
like outer space.
Didn’t they tell you,
we are all rockets?
And mine has picked up speed.
I am up so high now,
look at my eyes water,
I am moving so fast.
Don’t pity me,
it’s magnificent.
Take my hand.
Watch me cross over.
Hold your breath with me
like we did when we drove
through tunnels,
making a wish
when we got to the other side.
I wish for you to know
you are enough.
But you don’t need
to make a wish for me.
I have safely landed.
My husband announced tonight
in the way that marriage
seventeen years later
can be unpredictable
that if he knew he was going to die tomorrow
he would decide to believe
in an afterlife
and since he said nothing else
except ask me if he should make
noodles for the kids
I know in my heart
in the way that marriage
seventeen years later
can be psychic
that he told me this
so that if I am near him
just before he dies
I am to hold his hand
and remind him
how beautiful it will be
when he lands.
Don’t let anyone tell you
to renounce your brightest dreams.
Adult is not a synonym for mild.
But like a tree that wants to be taller,
you must also burrow
deep into the earth.
Ask yourself big questions
until the answers
spill out of you,
bare as bone.
Growing up is also growing in,
getting to know the parts of you
that you have dressed up
so long for others.
This is the best part of getting older.
Not the freedom to do what you want,
but the freedom to be who you are,
to be responsible
and also to be fearless.
If you don’t believe me,
go walk among the trees,
generous and stable,
yet see how they dance in the wind,
how they never stop craning their tips
at the stars.
I am not wrong,
I am strong.
I am my own dream
happening in real life.
Watch me feed my baby
and my ambition
at the same time.
I can pour my heart out,
and there is still love
left over.
The magic trick is knowing
who I am.
I am talent
I am trying
I am enough.
I am a working mother.
You said I couldn’t have it all,
but you forgot
that I grew human beings
inside me.
You can keep your guilt.
I don’t need it.
I am busy being the earth
underneath my children,
and also a star
shining so bright
they can see
when it is their turn,
they do not have to choose
between a bold
and tender
life.
My husband and I brag sometimes
about how proud we are of our kids,
which is something you can clearly only do
with your partner or the grandparents.
So it was that we were basking
in how mature our kids are
that they just watched
On Golden Pond with us and loved it,
how lucky that they aren’t only interested
in remakes and sequels,
when our 10-year-old son
came downstairs and asked:
“Is there an On Golden Pond 2?”
And after laughing for a long time,
I quietly thanked
the gods of humility
for not yanking
the reminder
too hard.
I go to the Christmas tree lot on my own
because of the pandemic,
and I line up in the rain,
just distanced enough
from everyone else
to make chatting feel weird.
The lights and music are festive
but for some reason,
it makes me feel sad,
like it’s trying too hard.
I breathe in the smell of the trees
and it immediately lifts the needle of my memory
and plays an old image
of me and my mom at a tree lot,
trying to find the cheapest tree
and then me riding home without a seatbelt,
facing backwards,
clutching the tree by its tip,
because the trunk of our old Honda Civic
wouldn’t close,
my mom and I singing along
to Christmas carols on the CBC.
I point to the smallest tree in the lot.
“I’ll take that one,” I say.
I thank the guy who saws off
the bottom of the tree,
and the girl who takes my money,
whose hair is in a bun
topped with a blinking star.
I smile at everyone in the lineup
on my way out,
forgetting for a moment
that I’m wearing a mask.
And on the drive home,
I can’t find any station playing Christmas music yet
so I sing the carols I know by heart
as loud as I can,
and because my mom used to name our trees
and say it was our job to rescue the littlest one,
I call mine “Leonard”
and I tell him he smells like all the happiness
that has not been taken away.
You were singing that part in the carol
where Santa sees you
when you’re sleeping,
and you suddenly grab my arm
because you are in bed right then
dressed in what you always wear to bed,
which is nothing at all.
“Can Santa see me naked?”
I say nothing for a moment
as I weigh the morality
of the mounting lies
I have told you about Santa Claus
and before I know it,
I am inventing another one.
Which is how that rumour started
in your school
about how Santa
has magic-shaped eyeballs
that can only see presents,
reindeer, chimneys
and faces.
So I practice in my head
one more time,
what I will say to you
when it all comes undone
about how Santa might not be real,
but there is definitely
magic at play
that made me do it.
