Ellie I'm melting,
You are a beautiful writer but I think I already knew that. The thought feels familiar anyway.
Yes I absolutely do remember that moment in the crosswalk, the place where all my New York friends seem to be. I guess if I ever get lonely I'll start there... Anyway speaking of moms, I was on the phone with mine at the time about a dreadful episode disappointingly reminiscent of a pre me-too era. I think I was walking happily though, thanks for asking.
On heartbreak and other mediums of pain:
I used to fear them. This did not take the form of a spooky story in my head, but a physical aversion to love, a primal foreboding. It was a fear of the most detrimental category: subconscious. I've wisened up slightly since then and wrote the following poem about a year ago:
I used to think I wasn't scared, Sheila Rae the Brave
Of snakes and bugs or bigger kids, creatures all the same
The butterfly is what made me fall, in tenderness there's pain
And now my fear is fear itself, for it I cannot change
And in the past year I think I've wisened up yet again — lucky me. The poem sounded nice but fear can certainly be changed if we start practicing another way, taking some vivacious leaps of faith. I used to be a ballet dancer but anybody can leap, really. I think that's basically the trick (with some repetition of thought, word, and action). And then one day we just feel it, the fisheye window where the fear used to be.
Why do I feel like you were also born in January? It would make sense to me. Regardless, happy birthday Ellie.
Ireland
And then one day we just feel it, the fisheye window where the fear used to be.
Ali,
This will have no frills. I don't get my period, or at least not the (sorry to be graphic) violent evidence. This is convenient for many reasons, one of which is that I've deputized myself to simply declare when it's that time of month. To be explicitly clear: when I'm feeling especially cranky or dramatic I decide that my body must be facing women’s troubles, a mere battleground hosting our species' relentless dogfight of survival. When feeling like a real b*%#h, it's a convenient way to write off any responsibility for such self indulgent misery. Anyway, why has everyone been so loud and obnoxious and not in love with me today?
A few thoughts on your message:
Now that I'm rich in time I will most certainly check out that library and all others you recommend. A tour of sorts. Please join me at one of your choosing next week, if you're able.
To your notes on divine possibility, my answer to all questions & statements is yes. It is that time of year and if we keep up our current momentum, it always will be.
To your passage "Outside her bedroom window, where the ghost of the hundred-year-old tree that her parents just chopped down still grows, a mother lovebird has just made her nest.". There is a fallen willow tree, belonging equally to me as I to it, whose ghost grows humbly in my heart and it is perhaps the truest thing I know. Thank you for that, I'll have it forever.
Emailing at 7pm on a Saturday makes me feel superior to everybody but I'm working on that (consider paragraph 1 my apology).
Ireland
Gabriel,
I'm writing with great news.
My sleep has been no good these days (this is not the news). In it I've felt rather dead or at least very far away, my mind miles from the heart that rests in my ribs and sheets. Although my consciousness is deeply buried during these tossing nights, I wake pregnant with incoherent memory — color, sound, and plot each warped and vague, impressions of nauseous unease starting my days. I did have one particularly bad night while dreaming about an unfortunate character in my life. Now I don't want you to worry, as this has never happened before or since but I woke, not from the dream but to the sound of my own voice "Help me, help me, help me....". (I'll save you from having to read that in caps-lock)
Coming into consciousness to realize that a cry calling out is your own is traumatic in itself, saying nothing about the alarming volume of the voice. As you may have noticed, I'm usually quite soft spoken. So who was that girl? Who is she? I suppose she's the part of Ireland that gets no attention. But there she was demanding it, something finally hot enough to make the tea kettle scream.
Here's the part where we get to the good news, thanks for making it this far. On Sunday night I had my first pleasant dream since the start of this horrible streak. It was clear and true — like cold air. It was a dream about you. With that smile you held me and loved me, just like in real life. So for a few moments, or maybe a whole night, my head rested close to my heart and I felt alive again. How could I even know what deadness feels like anyway...
Goodnight,
Ireland
To your notes on divine possibility, my answer to all questions & statements is yes. It is that time of year and if we keep up our current momentum, it always will be