For all who sail
Across the sky
On stormy sea
To be near to
To be free
May you be.
For The Daily Post
Author: Na'ama Yehuda
Dish Dash
She walked into the house to a flurry of activity: broom in one set of hands, brush in the other. Guilty faces. Unidentifiable smell.
“What…?”
“He started.”
“She told me!”
The woman narrowed her eyes and scanned the room. The counter looked okay. No scorch marks. No splatter on the stovetop and walls like the last time when they had experimented with tomato lava. A foot in pink sock moved in the periphery of her vision and she lowered her gaze to the floor: the toes had attempted to nudge away a white bit of something. Paper?
She sniffed. What was that smell. She knew it from someplace … reminded her of dusty flea markets. Like old ceramics. Ceramics? Ceramics!
The distance to the garbage pail was covered in one giant step, arm already extended to reveal … a heap of shards, jagged shiny white, all sizes.
To the cabinet, still unbelieving: Bowls, mugs, cups. A suspiciously bare corner.
Little feet shuffled, oh so guilty.
There were no plates in the sink. None in the dishwasher.
“What have you done?”
They spoke over each other. “He did it She told me to We had a Greek wedding …”
“…so we had to break the plates,” the younger one emphasized with more hope than conviction. Even at not-quite-four-years-old he knew he was in trouble.
As for the seven-year-old? No added confirmation was required beyond how this child who disappears whenever there’s anything resembling cleaning up, had gotten herself voluntarily busy with the broom.
She shook her head, too stunned to truly feel angry. Yet.
“Where’s your big sister?” The fifteen-year-old was supposed to be watching the younger ones. She better have an explanation!
Chins tilted in the direction of the basement. Eager to shift blame. Muffled sounds filtered through the closed door. She listened. The tune was eerily befitting.
“Doing what?” … even though she already knew the answer.
The little one piped up. “She watching big fat Greek one wedding!”
For The Daily Post
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Journey Back, Journey On
As you travel paths of current days, new plans … remember times of past: The journeys never taken, the ones you had and wish you hadn’t, the ones you had and would again, the ones still left to seek and find.
Recall the feel of face against the window, the mist of breath on glass, the passing scenery, the whoosh of trucks, the sway of train, the rock of boat, the hum of plane.
Revisit muted conversations, real or invented, arguments and whining, complains and “I spy” games, “she’s touching me” and “99 bottles” songs.
Sensations, shared or private. Fall-asleep-legs, sticky vinyl against summer skin, hair in eyes, road grit, sweet treats, cold drinks. The heaviness of someone’s slumber on your shoulder, the lull of road weighing your own lids down.
And music. Radioed or piped through earphones. Sang loudly, hummed, internally known, ignored. The way the beat or words or both matched blur of blacktop under wheels or rain on windshield; the way it sometimes did not match at all.
Be still. Be rocked. Be moved. Be carried.
Allow yourself to be transported, taken back, imagined forward.
On this journey, your commute through life.
For The Daily Post
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Too Sweet To Eat!
There is no nibble urge so great
As that
Which clasps
With “awwww”
So sweet
At very sight
Of newborn
Feet …
Photo: Yisca Freedman
For The Daily Post
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Plane Wisdom
Photo: Pinterest
On gloomy days
That sap the light
And leave your soul forlorn
In life’s overcast,
Remember:
Above the darkest, densest clouds
Still shines
The brilliant sun.
For The Daily Post
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Ogunquit Duet
“Ogunquit Duet”
I took this photo in Ogunquit, Maine, during the summer of 2009, as hurricane “Danny” rolled in. Air and water mixed into a mist of gray, as the ocean roiled closer and closer to the buildings and the clouds kissed the waves.
The beach was deserted other than for some miserable looking seagulls who huddled as near the building as they could … and the brave soul who attempted a stroll against the edge of the storm … pushing forward with the umbrella not as rain shield but as barrier against the driving wind.
A moment after I took this photo, the tension broke as a gust whipped the umbrella up and over this person’s head, almost turning them into a kite. A dance ensued: The human tried to turn the umbrella sufficiently into the wind so they could close it; the wind buffeted each duck and weave maneuver with rain, wet sand, and foamy mist.
“Danny” won.
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Cringe Detector
“…None of anything is half nearly as organized as you’d want it to be, Aimee. … In the end, child … all that matters is what your own skin and neck hairs tell you.”
“My skin and neck hairs?”
She chuckled. “And your gut, while we’re at it. Think of that Watchman who was up to no good in a hurry. How did he make you feel, not only in your head with thoughts or worries but in your body?”
“He made my skin crawl. … ” Her meaning dawned on me. “Oh, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, and my belly flopped all frightened.”
“Exactly!” she smiled. “I knew those Matrons could maybe get you to obeying and to keeping your tongue quiet—not that anyone would know it now, from all your chattering—but they did not manage to squelch your instincts for detecting the real kind of wrongness. If you follow clues already in your body, you’ll see through titles and claimed importance. Just make sure you follow your body’s signaling and steer away from those who get your sensors to this kind of itching. Nothing but trouble in those people, and no amount of reasoning will make it worthy.”
(Excerpt, Outlawed Hope)
For The Daily Post
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A Local Princess
Most late afternoons she arrives to session in frilly sleepwear and pink plush slippers, locks of hair damp from her bath. I’m on first name basis with her three varieties of Elsa nightgowns, her Dora robe, her Hello Kitty slippers, her Eloise headband.
She has no qualms traipsing the urban outdoors in jammies (or on a rare rescheduled morning, with brush-phobic bedhead). It may be that she’s five … but the short commute sure helps: she lives right across the street. No fuss. No sweat. No need to primp.
After all she is donning royalty to sleep.
For The Daily Post
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The boy who was a girl
“I saw a boy who is a girl,” the six-year-old noted. We were wrapping up a session and he was coloring a Spider-Man drawing he’d made.
“Oh?” I offered. I don’t always know where things are heading when children offer out-of-the-blue declarations. Instead of assuming, I try to stay out of the child’s way till they say more or clarify.
“Yeah,” the little guy added. “He is a boy on the outside but he is really a girl on the inside.”
“I see.”
He lifted long-eyelashes with an adorable ‘is-she-really-listening-or-just-pretending-to’ look. When our eyes met, he nodded in satisfaction and lowered his gaze back to his drawing. He regarded it quietly for a few seconds then rummaged through the colored pencil box. “Aha!” he announced, pulled out the silver pencil, and meticulously drew squiggly lines over his superhero’s bodysuit.
“Yeah,” the boy said, “just like Spider-Man.”
I made a noncommittal noise in my throat and he looked up at me again, eyes slightly narrowed in concentration. “Yes,” the little boy stressed, “because you see, sometimes he is a regular man on the outside but he is still really Spider-Man on the inside.”
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When I Grow Up
“When I grow up,” she said, small face determined, adamant, “I will make sure no one is hungry and no one feels lonely for a hug.”
(S.J. age 5)
- Photo: Pinterest, Kay Anderson
For The Daily Post
Na'ama Yehuda 
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