Kiffen is mowing the grass on this Saturday...

And Norah flies back to Chicago today

It’s lovely to walk by Norah’s room and see an Olive cuddle…the two of them have been cuddling in Norah’s bed since 2011, and they are beloved companions.

We woke up to fall this morning, cool temperatures in the 50’s - what a relief after so many days of 80’s and 90’s. We began this packing in the heat of summer in LA when I told Kiffen one day, “Don’t come home without an air conditioner. I can’t do it in this heat.”

Our home in Echo Park had a window unit upstairs but no central air and you didn’t really need it except when you did on those blistering desert-hot afternoons. So in the midst of early packing, it was essential or sweaty hallucinations would set in.

Yesterday, as we opened the pod, I said, “What is that thing?”

It was huge and tall and white.

Kiffen said, “It’s the air conditioner. You said don’t come home without it.”

Oh. Tall and large, it’s a standing AC unit, and we don’t need it in Alabama where we have central air and now wide-open windows in the fall. I will find a place to donate it because it’s big and bulky, and this little house is bursting at the seams with boxes from LA, but I’m happy my grandmother’s standing ashtray made it. She used to smoke cigarettes, say the rosary, and watch “The Young and the Restless,” “As the World Turns, and “The Guiding Light” with that standing ashtray ever faithful nearby on afternoons in Leavenworth, Kansas.

As for the AC unit, Norah said, “It saved us in the packing on those 90+degree afternoons.”

We also picked an apple from the tree we planted for Dad.

And went on a hike in Red Mountain before the pod arrived.

Now Norah is leaving us after a week of having them/him around for me, and more than a month for Kiffen. Norah’s pronouns are they/them or he/him. I’m still getting used to it but I could not be prouder of Norah. What a big-hearted old soul, and what is parenting but accepting what comes your way? We could not have done this behemoth moving job without Norah giving up a month to help us. I will never stop missing them when they go away.

Yesterday, Norah and I drove around Birmingham looking for baked goods to give to their dear friends who were taking a big test in their second year of Med School. The wonderful Last Call Baking shop closes when they run out which usually means 10:00 am or earlier, so we ended up at Continental Bakery and splurged on decorated shortbread cookies as gingerbread men, robots, corn, dinosaurs, cats, pumpkins, and smiley faces.

But it was good to drive around Birmingham with Norah. I taught this kid how to drive here, reluctantly on my part but necessary, and we took it slowly. I never had to teach Lucy and Flannery how to drive. I left those honors to Kiffen in LA traffic, but it was on me to teach Norah, so we drove those same streets where our early driving lessons began. It made me remember the day when Norah got a learner’s permit at the DMV, and a woman named Spencer asked Norah, “What color is your hair?”

Norah said, “It’s kind of reddish, strawberry blonde with some brown.”

Spencer raised an eyebrow. “What color are your eyes?”

“Blue-green, but greener more than blue with hazel flecks too.”

“Who brought you here?” Spencer was done.

“Um. My mother.”

“Go out there and ask your mother what color your eyes are and take that coffee with you. No drinks allowed.”

Norah loved this story and repeated it often. Spencer at the Alabama DMV off Arkadelphia Road was Norah’s first grownup who was not interested at all in the finer details of Norah, and Norah found it hilarious and performed Spencer for us all - Norah’s first foray into bureaucratic authority.

Now Norah will go back to Chicago to find a job, maybe in public health, maybe in something else. I send them daily job listings, unsolicited and probably ignored, but I can’t help myself. I see “remote” or “art” or whatever, and I think - maybe Norah might like this, but I really need to stop. They will figure it out. Norah also gets to be with Lucy, Trent, and Bonnie Alfred in Chicago, and their pod arrives on Tuesday with the arrival of the other half of our LA life.

Finally, this week, we also saw the poet laureate, Ada Limón, at the University of Montevallo, and it was such a night of hope and poetry. A student asked her about anxiety and stage fright, and she said, “Whenever I feel scared or anxious about a reading or doing something in public that scares me, I think of the five people who love me the most, and I put my hand on my heart and breathe, and I take them with me, so I’m not alone. And I’m telling you that so you don’t have to be alone either when you have to do something that scares you.”

Her poems filled me up that night when I was so worried about Flannery so far away in LA and out of touch. He called right before the reading began to catch us up on things, and I was incredibly grateful to hear from him.

Here is Ada’s poem “Calling Things What They Are” from her new book THE HURTING KIND and her love of birds and naming them, and it makes me want to name the birds who flock to our birdfeeder.

We also met up with good friends, poets, and writers, and how strange it was to be with Kiffen on a random Wednesday night in early October listening to poetry and not be planning to drive him to the airport to catch a flight back to LA.

Shoutout: If you are looking for a great crime podcast, I can’t recommend “Earwitness” highly enough about a wrongly convicted man on Alabama’s death row. Somehow hoping against hope that Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, pays attention does the right thing, and pardons this man whose been on death row for more than half of his life. His name is Toforest Johnson.

The creator of the podcast “Earwitness” is Beth Shelburne (in the pink shirt next to my lovely former student, Taylor Stewart, who is working on her first novel now), and “Earwitness” is produced by Lava For Good.

Earwitness

And, Salaam Green, in the “Trust Poets Not Politicians” shirt, is one of Alabama’s best storytellers and writers in social justice and literary healing arts. Here is one of her essays too - “Standing in the Government Cheese Line.”

Okay, time to roust Norah to get packing for the airport, and the next thing and the next and the next…thank you for reading on a Saturday.

Love,

Kerry xo