In twenty delicious minutes,

this magnolia bloom opened from a tight, baby's-head-sized bud.

I had gone back to sleep for twenty minutes having said good-bye to my son who left for school.

What other miracles will appear today?

to J

Listening to an old friend's music, and I'm wearing pale pink and jeans and it's a steady beat and a low, low voice, a growl that makes me shiver, yes, walking on air. The boy is making pasta in the kitchen, yesterday's lassitude is today's dig deep. There is no denying the wild horse in us, said Virginia Woolf. I've been thinking about miracles of late, not the Jesus kind, how small they are and yet, how huge. I've been thinking of paradox and the skill in holding it, the tightrope stretched tight, the give and the balance. It's a miracle! they say, over and over and I want to agree, I nod my head, I say yes. I bristle in the assent. It's been nearly twenty years of work, this miracle. Not a descent from nowhere, somewhere -- bing! or ping! -- it's hard labor, the years of it, what I've done in mind and body. S pointed out that we work our asses off, and I laughed at the spread of mine despite what should be a grotesque muscularity. Paradox, again.  Is that a miracle? Thank God! others say, for the miracle! I think, it's a plant! I, and many others, worked our asses off to get it despite it being kept from us by those who keep things down, whose power is such that paradox is impossible, who reel in the tightrope, shield their eyes at the attempt, would never walk on air. I'm drained from the work, from the voices that make miracle suck me dry. Back and forth, back and forth. I'm walking toward the growl that makes me shiver, the air. Hold your breath.

Waiting

Anzo Borrego Desert, 1998

dedicated to those who know

I've carried a fortune in my wallet for probably fifteen years. It sits just over the birth date on my driver's license, under a plastic sleeve. I have to move it aside when someone asks to see my identity.

The fortune states:  YOU WILL SOON WITNESS A MIRACLE.

I'm finding the wait exhausting, my sustenance the tenuous connections made, seemingly, in ether, sustained by something shared and necessarily cryptic to everyone else.

Medical Marijuana Update Number 3,235,679: When I Sit at My Computer Weeping

First of all, the reason that I'm weeping is because of this story. The part that got me weeping was this:

"I literally see Charlotte's brain making connections that haven't been made in years," Matt said. "My thought now is, why were we the ones that had to go out and find this cure? This natural cure? How come a doctor didn't know about this? How come they didn't make me aware of this?"

and this:

"I didn't hear her laugh for six months," Paige said. "I didn't hear her voice at all, just her crying. I can't imagine that I would be watching her making these gains that she's making, doing the things that she's doing (without the medical marijuana). I don't take it for granted. Every day is a blessing." 

I've been in this game for nearly twenty years now, and I've been down the road of "cures" for nearly that long as well. My hopes went up and my hopes were dashed and then they went up and then they were dashed. Sophie was tested for this and tested for that, tried this and tried that. I learned to keep the hope, but I learned to shrug off the dashed hopes, sometimes bitterly but never in any sort of defensive way. If you don't have hope, you don't have anything, my old friend Tal once said, even after her own dear son had passed away. I've held the hope in the family and The Husband has, too.

These medical marijuana miracle stories are giving me hope, but they're also driving me nuts. When I log into the Pediatric Cannabis Therapy group page on Facebook, I'm overwhelmed by people's advocacy efforts for their children with seizure disorders. I see myself, but I see myself more than ten years ago. I am so tired. I'm tired of doing it. I might even be a bit tired of holding hope. I know I should rally the forces and get down to it, but I'm having a hard time doing it. I got the stuff for Sophie and gave it to her for nearly a week. There was absolutely no response. I figured out from reading other's advice, that the proportion of CBD to THC that I had was too small, insignificant actually, to impact Sophie's epilepsy. I am having a hard time figuring out where to get the right stuff, the Charlotte's Web, the Harlequin strains, as they don't seem to be available in southern California. I read about people packing up their bags and moving to Colorado or whatever state has more lenient medical marijuana laws. I feel guilty. Then I remember that I moved to California from my beloved New York City fifteen years ago for exactly the same reason: a possible better life for Sophie.

I'm not sure what the purpose is of this blog post other than to somehow hash out my conflicted feelings, try to rally myself to take another go at it. My heart is filled with happiness for the people who do, finally, find their miracles. Their children's seizures stop, they begin to laugh, their broken brains are given an opportunity to mend. Sophie? Sophie is still seizing, and my hope is like a hermit living on the top of some windy, sacred Chinese peak.

There's random poetry, if nothing else

Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890

Open up a book of poetry and read something. Here's Miracle by Seamus Heaney.

Miracle

Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in ---

Their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat. And no let-up

Until he's strapped on tight, made tiltable
And raised to the tiled roof, then lowered for healing.
Be mindful of them as they stand and wait

For the burn of the paid-out ropes to cool,
Their slight lightheadedness and incredulity
To pass, those ones who had known him all along.

What the world needs,

Henry's drawing
of the Buddha in a smear of chocolate sauce on a plate, 2012

is less talk of miracles and more creation of them.

Henry's portrait of Sophie, 2003