Memoir and Memory – Queer Mama Rising

Sweet Pain, and Savoring

Posted on October 12, 2025 by Queer Mama Rising

*Content warning: self harm (historical)*

In the writing circles I have been gathered into, writers fall somewhere along a spectrum. One on side are plotters – those who outline, timeline, and map out how their story will unfold. On the other side are the pantsers – those who write “by the seat of their pants.” For those of you who know me outside of a computer screen, you may be surprised to learn that I am an absolute pantser.

Fun fact: whenever I sit down to write this blog, I almost always know exactly where it starts, and almost never know exactly where it ends. Sure, most times I know what I want to write about as far as a general topic, or story I want to share. Occasionally, even that is a surprise to me. For someone who loves structure and clarity as much as I do, it vexes me to not be able to find a straight line in anything I write.

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love writing. I love the feel of a pen in my hand, the ease at which the ink flows across the page. I love that a simple Word document can keep up with my racing brain, even if my fingers occasionally fumble on the keys. I love the aesthetics of writing in all media it takes, and I will buy any sticker with a typewriter on it I find. I love notebooks and stationary, and how fonts can be used to impart tone and how twenty-six letters can tell infinite stories. I have never considered myself as someone who suffers for my craft.

But the lack of being able to plan for “what comes next” definitely abrades my neural network, sandpaper rubbing against the grain. When it comes to writing, I cannot think linearly; and the longer I do it, the less predictable it is.

The need is there – the need to put words to my feelings, the need to express the constant churn inside me. Recently on social media I saw the question circulating, “why did you write?” My prepared answer for when I’m famous one day is pretty much, because queer stories deserve to be told like anyone else’s. But under that, a far more raw and truthful answer – because I had to. It’s a compulsion. I don’t believe I could ever stop writing again. So even as I struggle to find a routine, even a rhythm, that makes it possible for me to hit the release valve on these dammed words, I know they must. And they will, whether I want them to or not.

I recently finished a book called, What Happened to You? co-authored by Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry. While I have long known the impact of trauma (both capital T and otherwise) on my own life, it was still incredible to hear the neuroscience behind it. Every word, carefully spoken by one author or the other, brought more understanding to my own struggles, as well as those of people I love.

It was also the first time that someone besides my own therapist outright called self-harm an addiction.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever spoken about that here. Likely in passing; it’s not something I hide. I don’t wear long skirts or pants every day, or long for tattoos to cover the memories. It wouldn’t matter if I never saw the scars again. I’d still miss it, and still think about the kiss of the blade every single day.

It has been sixteen years, nine months, and fourteen days since the last time I cut through my own skin in order to find relief. Six thousand, one hundred, thirty-two days.

The best part about that? I had to look it up. I stopped counting the days long ago.

Oh, I remember the last date, the whole last event. That one didn’t scar – my body, anyway. I still think about it. Sometimes, I still even crave it. I yearn for that release. I dream of it, romanticize it, and I never go back.

Not too long ago, I threw a pair of scissors across the room from where I sat. It took me a few minutes to realize why the hell I had done that. Yeah. It’s an addiction, and the lure of it is ever present. I called my therapist, then my doctor, then pulled out my WRAP plan and followed it.

Now here I am, over 800 words into this, and just now getting to what I actually wanted to talk about. Total typical pantser behavior.

Another concept What Happened to You? brought to light was that of post-traumatic wisdom. There’s something to be said for living through shit and coming through the other side. You learn things – about yourself, other people, and how you relate to the world. You already know, far too well, what doesn’t feel good. If you’ve worked on your trauma, if you’ve discussed and analyzed and contextualized and gotten down and dirty with it, you know it.

And if you know it that intimately, you can get to know the seeds the shadows leave behind.

One thing my therapist and I have been talking about a lot lately is learning to savor. Lately, just the past month or so, I’ve been trying hard to be more present with what is in front of me, and give my anxiety and depression less of my active attention. (Getting off social media has, annoyingly, been very helpful with this). And while ‘mindfulness’ has been a word that just irks me, thinking about presence and intention has struck a chord.

On our trip to San Francisco, I had zero chill. Like, none. (There will be another post about that trip coming soon). The train car at the airport heard me clearly blurt out, “Holy shit is that a palm tree?” and “Oh my god, that’s a cactus!” I couldn’t stop staring at staggered rows of pelicans flying overhead in the sunset light. I laughed until I was breathless, chasing my kid in the surf.

So hey… When’s the last time you looked back through your phone at the pictures you took, on a trip or at a concert or something you wanted to remember?

I have looked at the ones from that trip nearly daily, and not just pulling them up to show people; but opening them on purpose to think about, and recall the feeling of wonder in my chest as I stared up the impossibly tall trunk of a redwood; to feel the warmth of the tidepool water on the beach, and the cool breeze between my teeth from my jaw dropping when we discovered herds of elk on the cliffs.

This past week, on Wednesday, I sat down with my morning coffee like I do every morning. Coffee ice cubes, brewed with cardamom and cinnamon, a splash of milk; it was one of the most memorable cups of coffee I’ve had. Why? I’m not sure, but I do know that I savored every sip.

Another thing – when it’s trauma that teaches you to savor, it also teaches you when it’s safe to do so. There’s a quote I keep thinking of and have yet to find again, about the overwhelming sensory experience in a modern-day grocery store (and no, it’s not the Jon Kabat-Zinn one, which is possibly misattributed anyway). But anyway, the grocery store? Not a safe place for me to be intentionally present and try to savor. Hell, no. Get me out of there as fast as possible. Grocery shopping produces (ha) such anxiety in me, that when I get ready to go, I make the list twice – once to know what I need, then to put it in order of my route through the store, which does not change. The kiddo even has made a little song to remind me that “it’s okay to be stressed, just take three deep breaths” while we make our way through the weekly hell.

And now, with that behind me, I can savor. I have a beer that I really enjoy, my kid bouncing her way through a game on the beat-up couch, doofy dog under my feet, and I’m writing. Not at my usual time, not even at my preferred time – based on past routines, I should be cooking right now – but here I am. I can see the small smile on my face in the reflection, feel the cool air on my arms and warm socks on my feet. It’s raining outside, loud enough to get past my headphones, and is adding to the ambiance.

I’ve got a bunch of chapters left to write for my novel, and not wholly sure what I’m doing with them. I’m already dreaming up the next series. And I’m writing a blog post, while remembering I need to keep working on my Skillshare class for social media marketing.

I’m safe, sheltered, fed, and warm enough. I should put on my reading glasses; I should drink some water. For a few more moments, however, I’m going to write – because I love to and because I need to – and just savor this little slice of time.

… Where was I going with this?

Now go look at the pictures of fireworks you took, thinking you’d look at them someday. Make that day today. Call up a memory, a feeling, if you’re in a place to do so. Or make a new one – let a pastry melt on your tongue, wrap yourself in your softest blanket, or whatever is going to feel so good that when you fall asleep tonight, you can think of it again, and drift off with a smile.

Take care of yourself. We all have to start there.

A picture of a hand holding a smartphone with an image of a baby tucked onto someone's chest

Inertia

Posted on August 17, 2025 by Queer Mama Rising

I know I’ve talked about social media here before – even as yes, you probably found this off the Facebook link – and how much I have come to hate it. Or, my interaction with it. No, actually, I think as a whole I despise it.

I was an early adopted of Facebook, back when you needed the dot-edu email address to get it. I remember being thrilled to find something a little more static than just AOL instant messenger, and more interactive than Myspace. I remember rushing back to the dorm to log in and see what hilarious anecdotes that my friends from high school – because with Facebook, you didn’t have to let go of those now-tenuous connections – had come up with in my absence.

I remember when the text before the box where you typed your post changed, and when Timelines were rolled out. I remember not having the word “meme” and cutting, pasting, and printing out funny things I saw on the screen to hang on my dorm walls. I remember being horrified when my little sister joined Facebook when she was 16, and realizing it was no longer just for college kids. For me, that was when I really noticed that huh… Facebook and stuff like that might be problematic sometimes.

My wife was the second person I knew with a smartphone; the first person I knew worked in tech, so I didn’t think it was much more than a job perk. But the early days of my relationship with Hawthorne, they’d always be sliding their thumb over the same two inches of screen, reading off articles they found or showing me pictures of puppies dressed up in Halloween costumes. In 2012, when I took a job that gave me a smartphone, they helped me set it up. My lock screen was a cartoon of two strawberries with ears and eyes added to make them look like puppies. I don’t remember whatever the cute, motivational message beneath them was, but I remember Hawthorne being very pleased with the strawberry pups. I’m certain if I took the time, I could find that old picture somewhere in the cloud, in whatever corner our collective stuff is stored in.

Over the next 8 years, social media became their way of dealing with unmedicated ADHD, their never-ending curiosity, and the pain that became so present in their life. On September 19, 2020, I took their phone off the charger on their nightstand. I scrolled their contacts for who I had to notify. They had also been on a couple apps where I knew they had connected with folks, and I messaged the ones who seemed to be mid-conversation to tell them what had happened. It was awkward, but I was in enough shock that it didn’t bother me until years later.

I downloaded all the pictures without looking at them, and copied a couple phone numbers that I didn’t have. One last time, I watched the screen fade out, the picture of Lucy tucked into their flannel shirt in the NICU. I put their phone in the junk drawer in the kitchen, letting the battery run out.

The next time I saw it, I was packing the house to move. Mice had found the junk drawer and nibbled at the blue silicone of the case. I peeled that off, wiped off the rest of the phone with a Clorox wipe, and packed it away.

I saw it again, here and there over the years, when I stumbled upon the box. At one point, I moved it to a pile of old electronics that I intended on destroying one day when I had some anger to let go of.

In the meantime, of course, is when I have adopted the same habits as H. Pain? Anxiety? Don’t want to face what bullshit tasks need to be done? Time to scroll. And truthfully, I hate it. I hate knowing that I can be so distracted, so sucked into this tiny screen that I don’t notice what’s happening around me. I don’t notice the time passing; I do notice the things that don’t get done, the words that don’t get written. I finally took Facebook off my phone, and kept the timer on my Instagram. I figured that would solve the problem. It took a while to realize that it’s harder to market my books without the immediacy of Facebook in my hand, and my author page has suffered. I’ve also lost touch with the local groups of soon-to-be kindergartner families, and the resources I’ve accessed through the platform, like Marketplace. It took a while to realize that whenever I open Instagram to post something, I get immediately distracted, and by the time I’m ready to stumble my way through creating a post, I’m out of time for the day. It took a while to realize that it doesn’t matter if I try to curate what apps I have for media on my phone, if there is something I can continually access (Threads being my current obsession), I am going to reach for distraction. I don’t waste the finite willpower I have on curbing social media usage myself.

Last week, while I was lamenting this first-world problem, my friend asked why I don’t just get another phone to use just for social media. It doesn’t need a SIM card, they said, just WiFi; I can bring it to events so I can post or do lives, keep all my social media on there, and think of it as essentially a work device.

Because I’m not buying another phone, I scoffed, then thought about it.

Currently, there are two old iPhones kicking around my house. One was Lucy’s Nana’s before she upgraded; she gave it to Lucy because “kids and phones,” and Lucy has played with the (never charged) device for years. To her, it’s just a thin brick that looks like Mama’s.

And I remembered that I had Hawthorne’s phone.

After a couple evenings of looking (and trying to avoid the boxes of stuff that are more emotional, and failing), I found it. I didn’t feel any connection to H, even though it’s the last object they ever held in their hand. I plugged it in and charged it up.

The screen read Thursday, October 15, 12:29 AM (it was actually August 5, 11:14 PM). There was Lucy, peeking out from the flannel shirt and smiling. There were 13 tabs open, including 2 from Facebook, 2 from YouTube, and 3 from Wikipedia about Maren Morris, Billy the Kid, Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, plus 3 Google searches for song lyrics, a movie they couldn’t remember the name of, and a sex offender registry. Yeah, that tracked.

I still feel no connection. And yet, I reached out to some of our mutual friends and asked, it’s okay to factory reset their phone, right? They’re used to these questions from me. I need support like that when I let little pieces go. Most of the time, I end up taking a picture of the thing in question, making the FINAL-final letting go a problem for future-me.

The phone is ready to be reset. It’s charged. I remembered the passcode, only 4 digits.

I’ve talked about doing this, rather extensively now, with my friend (the one who suggested it in the first place) and my therapist. I’ve had it on my to-do list every day for a week. Why do I keep putting it off?

There’s a part of me that wants to sit and explore it. See what stories those old threads might hold. Can I log into their Facebook? Reddit? Tumblr? I rub my hands and cackle maniacally, what havoc would it cause for Hawthorne to reach out to someone that way? Nah, it would be assumed a scam. I don’t really want to put myself through looking for things that might upset me, either. I already have the pictures; the files are on the cloud, and I have their old laptop, too.

You know what the problem is? What’s stopping me from going through with this?

I’m preemptively annoyed that I will have to go through the setting up of the damn thing, downloading apps and then, trying to remember my passwords for all the accounts.

OH, THE HORROR.

When I admit that, out loud (or, yknow, in text), I feel like such a shallow asshole. But almost immediately, I’m struck that right now? That’s a situation – not even a problem, really – that is absolutely and completely in my control. And right now, I can’t do much about the ICE raids, or martial law in DC, or war crimes and genocide in Gaza, or Category 5 storms approaching the coast. Right now, 8am on a Sunday morning, I can’t contact the school to get more info on what Lucy will need. I can’t go grocery shopping because the child is still sleeping. I can’t update my budget app because the banks aren’t open.

So in this moment – when my anxiety is low, the house noise is mostly non-existent, the coffee is fresh and everything is closed – I can choose to focus my energy on the things that are in my control.

The shit that’s going down out there… it’s too big for me to hold at this moment. It’s too heavy, too inactionable at this moment. I don’t want to see it; and I acknowledge my vast privilege in being able to choose that. I am very, very fortunate. And because of that, I need to use it for good. And that means, to me at least, that I need to start with what is at hand.

Getting social media off my phone and onto something that I have to make far more of a conscious act to pick up will be good for my mental health. The better my mental health, the more regulated I can be, and then, the more regulated I can make the environment for Lucy. When I tell her “let’s focus on what is in front of us,” and “we can only do one thing at a time, right?” they are just as much reminders to myself as they are lessons for her. I cannot personally deliver aid to Gaza. I can write a grocery list and menu to shop mindfully, so that we are not contributing to food waste. I can’t release the Epstein files, but I can pick up the trash the storm scattered in front of my house. I can’t stop this regime, but I can participate in mutual aid. I can’t fix the hate in the world, but I can show my kid the love in it, and how we can return and reciprocate it back.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, when you can. Take care of yourself first; we have to. We have to. We can’t pour from an empty cup, and memes just won’t fill it.

Time to go figure out my passwords. Dammit.

Oscar

For All That I Carry

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Queer Mama Rising

There’s always music on in this house. Always sound. For now, for these morning hours on this day, it is as silent as it will ever be. Lucy is at a friend’s house, waking up soon at a sleepover before spending the day with the sitter. TV is off, there’s no music; every single device on silent. The dog sighs occasionally, the cars pass outside the window. It’s early enough on a Saturday that the general sound of two men having a conversation across the street carry over. I’ve opened the window, the first time in months; there is no breeze, and the shade is still deep. I’ll have to remember to close it soon and turn the AC back on.

Seven years ago, time stopped somewhere on Tuesday morning, July 17^th and didn’t start again until 6:34AM on Thursday, July 19^th. The time between exists only as a liminal space, a time hung in the balance of disbelief.

Today, at 6:30, I held the tiny urn to my chest, cold stone, until it was warmed through, and I felt the cool patches from where I had given it my warmth. I set it next to his crown, then struck a match; the tiny stick splintered, enough fibers holding together that the flame didn’t fall. I lit the candle, the one given to me by someone else who had similarly birthed stillness, and sat. The Mother watched over, her face serene in the candlelight.

I spoke to him for a minute, words so similar to what I tell Lucy – I love you so much. I’m so proud to be your mama. I love you, I love you – and more that I hope never to say for Lucy – I miss you every day.

My body knows the time without checking my watch. My whispers trail off, and I let the minute of his birth pass in silence, acutely aware of the emptiness of my hands and my womb. They ache for the tiny life they once carried.

Then I rise, and gently lift the baby blanket his Nana made, the only thing I have left that held him besides my own skin. I opened my phone and pulled up the video of Andrea Gibson reading their poem “Love Letter from the Afterlife” to their wife. I let it play, feeling the words echo in the empty parts of me. “One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born –“

The playback stopped. I looked over at my phone, laying on the bed. The video was still up, so I didn’t move, just closed my eyes. Waited.

Waited until my body sobbed, unbidden, and I reached for the phone. I picked it up without touching the screen, and –

“ – and they are all the more excited.”

The mortal death of Andrea Gibson hit me hard this week, in this space between Hawthorne and Oscar’s birthdays. They left right smack between them – 9, 14, 19. I can’t ignore the symmetry of those dates strung together. I haven’t written since their death, but I’ve felt it coming, the words building up behind a dam made from capitalism and parental responsibilities. Apparently now is when the dam breaks.

Every year, I try to be gentler with myself in this between time. I liken it to the days between Christmas and New Year in workplace. There’s no deadlines, no major work being done – I know that’s not true for everyone, but in my world, the fiscal year is separate and tends to be when the rush of deadlines hits. And, in so many ways, it is a new year for me. Forget CE/BCE or BC/AD. Life is divided differently for me, and I think, for all those who have carried both life and death in their bodies. There is the Before Oscar time, and the After Oscar time. And so, when the clock strikes midnight tonight, The Year After Oscar 7 begins. I’ll return friends calls and texts, and get the weekly grocery shopping done. I will set the new year off with music in my soul-home state, and dance with my amazing, brilliant, feral child as it echoes off the lush green mountains. Hawthorne and I played that music for hours and hours for both of the little lives we shepherded. How fitting to find the concert there, ten miles from Lucy’s birthplace, on the first day of AO 7. It also feels a little strange to think that’s what I’ll be doing merely 36 hours from now, from these moment of heaviness that drag my fingers to the keyboard to catch everything that is pouring out of me faster than the pen can. The reams of paper I already go through.

Seven years. I’ve written before how “should” is a four-letter word. He should be seven; he should be starting second grade a few days before Lucy has her first day of kindergarten. We should be shopping in West Lebanon for new clothes for them to start school in our tiny town of Stockbridge, Vermont. Should sucks.

Lately I have been feeling called to lean into my witchy aspects more. I started keeping my tarot cards closer, and being less prescriptive with my own self on when I use them. I’ve been reading more, and while I roll my eyes at the algorithms, enjoyed the content that’s crossed my feeds. I’ve been listening to my horoscope from an astrologer and witch I feel a connection to, and have finally done my star chart. But I find myself wondering, this year, about the symbolism and signs around Oscar. So, I did his star chart – and downloaded the full explanatory report, because again, I’m just learning. He’s a Cancer sun, like his Papa, that I knew; also Libra moon and Leo rising.

Today, he would be seven years old. Today, grief weighs seven pounds and one ounce, and is the heaviest it ever is. I’ve tried to explore numerology before to no avail, and today is no different. I feel no connection to it; maybe I don’t understand it enough, but today does not feel like the day to pursue it, either.

Today is a day to give myself the space to feel what needs to be felt, just like I did on Hawthorne’s birthday last week. That day I walked over 18,000 steps on the beach and on a hike at the (poorly named) World’s End park, and I found what I needed. Today I have some options after writing – writing is compulsory, after all – and whatever feels good, I’ll follow. Last week my therapist asked what containers I have for all this grief; how do I hold it? And really, the containers are the same as they have always been. Writing, and natural spaces where the air isn’t crowded with voices.

So if you see me today, just give me a wave. Leave a message at the tone, drop me a text or a DM, and just know that I’ll get back to you in the new year.

Hawthorne

Happy Birthday, Hawthorne, on the Age of the Answer

Posted on July 9, 2025 by Queer Mama Rising

Dear Hawthorne,

Let me start off by saying, you motherfucker.

But even the anger is tired. I’ve grown used to you not being here to bear it. And still, to this day, my frustration with you is heavily laced with affection. Ass.

You would be 42 today, and I wonder what you’d look like, what you’d sound like.

I see you in her, in this feral thing we named together. I remember the awe in your eyes when you came back to me, the nurse holding her so I could finally see here, and you held my hand. You may not share genetics, but shit, she’s definitely your kid. 100% chaos muppet. We have therapy together, and she’s been officially diagnosed. “ADHD… AF,” the doctor said. You’d have liked her.

I see you in her. She’s brilliant; her vocabulary is absolutely bananas. I remember Tristan telling her something was a four-syllable word, and she wouldn’t have to worry about it for a long time. Yeah, right. This kid understood “non-negotiable” and used the word “consequences” over a year ago. And she’s a little engineer – she wants to know how everything works, and why. She’s going to have the upper hand on you in math in a few years, but don’t worry – she’ll probably be taller than me at that point, too.

She doesn’t remember where the remote is, and sometimes forgets to take off both shoes, but she remembers Ella.

She knows that when we die, our bodies go to the earth, and some part of us goes to the stars; and that’s where you and Oscar – and Ella – are.

We talk about you every day. She recognizes you in pictures, and she’s so drawn to music. She is impatient to read, and on nights she can’t sleep, I find her half-buried in books the next morning.

Things are so different now. I still don’t feel cut out for the suburbs; I ache for our mountains, our house that withstood hurricane floods in a time where we lose hundreds of people at a time to those “storms of the century.” I think centuries got a lot shorter.

I miss our garden, our little budding homestead; our river, our fireplace. I couldn’t stay. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. You were in every river stone, every wildflower in the field. It was too fresh to bring me comfort then.

Today, I’m going to Nantasket. There are trails to explore that we talked about, and beaches that we walked. I’ll never forget your laugh when you dragged me into the water in early May – it was the first beach I took you to, and had I fully realized your love for the ocean, I would have waited a few months to let the water warm first. Ah well.

There’s a bakery, and a diner. I’m packing my writing stuff, my binoculars, your camera, our fishing gear. I want to be ready for where the day brings me, wherever your memory leads me. I remember how important birthdays were to you. I admit, I tried to work on your birthday last year; it didn’t go well, and I went home. Well, not home – I left work, and I went to the woods.

You would have liked the woods around here.

I know we drove by the highway exit I live closest to a number of times; I know I told you I used to go to Saturday school down there, and you shuddered. Hate to tell you, but if I can afford it, I’m going to send Lucy to those classes, too – she’d love it. By the way, your kid loves rock climbing, and she loves fishing and swimming and baseball. Oh, and skateboarding, though I’m not sure where that one came from.

I don’t want to say that I’m glad you aren’t here, but… fuck, this world has gotten so much scarier since you left it. Much like when the Arab Spring and following wards engulfed the lands that my parents had met and married on, and I was glad they didn’t have to see that… that’s how I feel now. The insurrection and everything that followed, a second term, ever-increasing violence against trans folks, and way too much more to mention… I don’t know if your broken bluebird heard could still sing. I wish for your strength and your presence to help me get through it, but it makes my heart ache to think of you having to endure this current hellscape.

You told me more than once that you never thought you’d make it to 30, that you worried you would be part of the forever 27 club. Instead, you kissed me at 27. And you were supposed to be a one-night stand.

I’m forever grateful that you weren’t.

I miss you. I wish I could be taking today off to celebrate with you, instead of just celebrating you. I’m going to go to the beach, and a coffee shop. Maybe the fishing stop; maybe the liquor store, though I think I have just enough Laphroiagh at home to toast you later. Oh, I gave away your scotch glasses to a friend who will use them as they were meant to be.

The blankets we slept under have too many tears to mend, and I’ve thrown all but one pack of your cigarettes away. Your fishing rod and camera are both in perfect working order.

Your memory lives on; you’re still part of the group chat. It’s funny to think about the thousands upon thousands of messages that are still being sent to you. Facebook says we’re married and reminds me today is your birthday. As if the date wasn’t carved into my heart already.

It’s almost seven AM; time for me to get the kid ready for the day. Actually, it’s hilarious – she hates getting dressed in the morning and tries to lay there like a dead fish. Every morning she reminds me of when you used to do that, just flop back and demand I dress you. How frustrated I’d get, swearing at you while I pulled clothes onto your limp and heavy body, you laying there like deadweight and laughing like a loon the whole time. Good practice for kids, you said, and goddammit if you weren’t spot fucking on. Ass.

I’m going to wrap this up, get her going, get packed up. I’ll talk to you again once I hit the ocean.

I love you so. Happy birthday to you, my OG chaos muppet.

Talk soon.

Love,

Current Events, Memoir and Memory

Mother [muhth-er]: Noun, Verb.

Posted on May 11, 2025 by Queer Mama Rising

Today is Mother’s Day. Historically, not one of my easiest holidays.

The intensity of difficulty has eased over the past couple years. To be a little emo about it, the song lyric in my head is from the Goo Goo Dolls – “scars are souvenirs you never lose, the past is never far.” And yeah, I’m smiling as I type it out to put it on YouTube.

For a long time, the day was hard because of the strained (to put it gently) relationship with my own mother. It also made me think of my bio-mom, a missing piece of a puzzle that I got to place with warmth and love when I met her a few years ago (happy Mother’s Day, Kelly!). I had a couple of women in my life who were not my mother who I did occasionally send cards to for this day. I hope they understood why; I was never looking for a replacement, I just wanted to be able to express gratitude for what I saw as any maternal love.

I have a lot of love to give. I always have.

They say grief is love with nowhere else to go. I have a lot of that, too.

I was pregnant with Oscar for this day in 2018. Happy, fat, physically aching, dreaming of the next year when I’d be holding him in my arms for pictures that never got to be taken.

2019, I was pregnant with Lucy. Terrified, distraught, and afraid to dream, and already in love with the little bean.

In 2020, it was the pandemic, but that was fine with me. I wanted pictures, nice pictures, of Hawthorne and Lucy in their little matchy outfits, and I got that.

2021, I couldn’t function. I don’t remember it. I don’t have any pictures.

2022, I took Lucy for beach adventure, just the two of us.

2023, we spent with the family, where I was gifted with their supervision and got to add an edible to the mix (highly recommended, by the way).

2024, my brother-in-law watched the kiddo, and my sister took me to a beautiful tea. My neighbor stole the kiddo when we got home and brought her back ten minutes later with a card she’d helped Lucy make.

This year, I have no plans. It’s a sunny day, I want to enjoy that. I’m going to be headed to the grocery store soon, hopefully avoid most of the dads who decided to take the kids and (hopefully) the shopping list and have no idea how to navigate the crowded aisles. Lucy wants the skatepark, I want to see some baseball, I want to eat something tasty and follow it up with cake.

The grief is there, a backbeat that never ends. It’s poised, kinetic, waiting for it’s time to be the singular sound or be overlaid with bright notes.

I find myself particularly contemplative this morning. I opened my journal to pages I had once promised to read daily, and continuously skip in the name of expediency.

Reading my word of the year and my affirmations, I felt like I had started a song I liked and then zoned out, and had to restart, because I wasn’t appreciating it the way I wanted to in that moment. I did that a few times, until I finally slowed down enough to read it out loud, each word of the definition of my word of the year, each of my affirmations.

It’s striking me today that the word I picked for the year – flex – can be considered a Janus word, or contranym. Janus was the ancient Roman god with two faces, each looking 180 degrees from each other. Two meanings (both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene…) that oppose each other.

The duality is fascinating to me today. Boasting, an ostentatious display… or pliancy, an ability to yield.

This is something I love about choosing a word of the year, as well as tarot and oracle cards. It provides a new angle more often than I could imagine on my own. It makes me think, and question, and play. My psyche is a kitten and the string today is a word. I’m going to let my soul tangle with it, see what happens.

(being a mother is a flex, a demonstration of the shit I have walked through to get the both of us here for the five and a half years of her life; mothering has taught me more about flexibility than anything else could)

It’s Mother’s Day, and I am a mother, noun and verb.

Noun: I am a mother to a starside child who never knew doubt or cold, only love and warmth.

Verb: I am mother to a wild and wonderful, fierce and feral force to be reckoned with. She challenges me daily, and brings me such joy. She has a shockingly wide vocabulary and the most incredible imagination. She feels so deeply, and she has so much love to give. She looks at me with my own eyes, and the mirror she holds up to me is warped in the best possible way. She has no concept of sin, and the most adventurous soul. She is going to be so much taller than me.

May she take the best of the notes I have given her – the crapshoot of DNA, the creativity, the deep well of feelings, the love of sunshine and wind in her hair, the wide-eyed willingness to learn. And while she will need balance, may she find her own, and not pick the strings of my anxiety, my mental health struggles, my fears and doubts and traumas.

May she write her own affirmations, and choose her own words with care. May she find her own way that is not mine, make her own mistakes, go to therapy for different reasons than I do.

Because I am Mama, and so much more. She is my child, and so very much more.

And so the song goes on.

Current Events, Memoir and Memory

Careening, Curating, Creating

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Queer Mama Rising

My thirty-ninth year has begun.

I’m not one of those people who has a birthday month, or even a birthday week – unless it’s the usage of the extra day of PTO given to me by work, or coupons in my email that I mostly discard. It’s never been a big deal. As a kid, there was always a family dinner on the day of; I’d still get chastised for what or how much I ate, dessert was often forcibly shared. Honestly, looking back, I can’t remember most of the parties with friends; those that I do remember, were they mine, or my sister’s that I helped with? No idea, especially since my parents were pretty content with “this worked for the first one, let’s do it again.”

I remember my 16^th birthday, not for any sort of license or freedom, but because it was the first time I had to call 9-1-1.

I remember my 21^st birthday, going to Fenway with my boyfriend and my bestie and spending $16 on one beer and two hot dogs. I’ve always been a lightweight, so the pint of Sam Adams kept me warm in the chilly April evening.

I remember misunderstandings and hurt feeling with Hawthorne until we figured out birthday traditions. It had always been far more special for them than me, and it took time to get used to it. They wanted me to take the day off and spend it with them, both for their birthday and ours. I always prioritized theirs, when it came back to the issue of PTO. We got the hang of it, and spent most of them fishing, with some sort of seafood for dinner and chocolate for dessert, and cards we delighted in picking for each other.

I remember the first birthday after Oscar died, and how I felt like I didn’t deserve one.

I remember the first birthday after Hawthorne died, and how desperately I wanted no one to acknowledge it. I didn’t want to celebrate. One of my besties ordered dinner to be delivered to my house, and that was the perfect balance of being taken care of and left alone.

I remember writing about birthdays before; but if I go looking to make sure I don’t repeat myself, I’ll get distracted, and this post will end up in the growing file of “unfinished and-or unpublished blog posts.”

I remember turning 37 and feeling unable to function, turning the age Hawthorne was when they died. I remember the jokes with their friends about careening towards forty, and feeling like they stopped mid-pinwheel.

I know the most recent years have been dinner with the cousins and cake; I remember last year being the first time I wanted to celebrate in what felt like forever. I got to spend the weekend with some forged family. I was only recently back on my feet from my health scare, so things were a little weird.

This year, I was excited for the things surrounding my birthday, the time I’d get to spend doing things I loved. 2025 has been full of change, heartaches and utter joy smashing into each other. With so much in flux, I was even less concerned with the actual date than usual.

It rolled in like any day, which honestly, is the way I like it. The child was a creature – I believe putting on shoes was the breaking point, but that could have been another day. I went to work, saw a friend who’d stopped by for a visit; her little man being exactly 38 years and 10 months younger than me, we obviously celebrated with sweet baby snuggles. I spoiled myself rotten at the bakery with croissants the size of my face and two different types of cake. My own man was celebrating, his first day at his new job, and he came over afterwards. We dragged the kid out for a walk, managing to catch that golden hour in warm spring air before diving into literal pounds of seafood – fried catfish for me, mussels and shrimp for him – and hot dogs for Lucy. We’d had edibles for an appetizer, and cupcakes throughout the night.

And it was wonderful. A normal day, a normal amount of stress and grief and work shit; magic and cake and love sprinkled throughout like Funfetti.

I don’t stress much about aging. I have a few grays – still a countable amount. I’m starting to see fine lines at the corners of my mouth and my eyes, evidence of a lifetime of emotion. My belly is round and soft after carrying kiddos, a little extra flesh under arms when I flex. My knees ache when my weight goes up, old sports (and general lack of grace) injuries make themselves known. I groan when I have to change positions at the end of the day, and I use the heated seat in the car to make my back feel better no matter the temperature outside. I’ve got probiotics and aspirin in my pillbox, and the biggest contained of ibuprofen you can get.

I am always learning to take better care of myself; it is an ever-continuing education. I got new reading glasses with the blue light thingy, and a recommendation for yellow-tinted lenses for night driving with the influx of stupid LED headlights. I’ve had my cervical cancer screening, and check my skin for changes in freckles regularly. I finally hit my weight loss goals, and am trying to focus more on movement than scale numbers. I’ve dealt with consecutive injuries – right bicep, right ankle sprain, left bicep – so just now feeling ready to dust off the gym membership.

I am trying to incorporate both physical activity (walking, gardening) and deliberate rest and relaxation into my days. My man has been teaching me to play video games on the Switch – resurrecting my love of Tetris and Spyro, and introducing me to Spiritfarer.

I’ve been working on a social media exit plan and reboot, working to cut down the time I lose to anxiety and distraction on my phone. I’ve fully deleted TikTok, tumblr, and Twitter. I’ve closed my personal Instagram, keeping my author IG and Threads accounts, as well as my Facebook. However, one of the best things I did was to delete Facebook from my phone. Not my account – I still have it, personal and professional, but now I have to use the computer to use it. I don’t know about you, but scrolling on a laptop is not the same thing as just thumbing the screen on my phone.

The screen time itself was not the issue; it was what lead to the screen in the first place. I remember Hawthorne telling me they used their phone (reddit, mostly) to keep themselves distracted from their physical pain. I remember with extreme clarity the moment I decided that was a good idea – sitting on the red couch in the new spot I’d chosen after they died, Lucy napping in her swing. I couldn’t read. I didn’t want to watch anything; everything reminded me of them and I couldn’t choose something new. I picked up my phone.

More recently I’ve come to realize just how much I rely on scrolling to “manage” my anxiety. Once that rise of overwhelm started, that whiny, physical discomfort of having to do something I didn’t want to, or was anxious/nervous about, or I just… didn’t want to be so damn present, I picked up my phone. And I hated it. I didn’t want to do it, but I had conditioned myself. And then it got to the point where it didn’t matter why I’d picked it up – to make an important call, check the weather for the day, see the picture from Lucy’s school or message from my man – I’d end up scrolling. I tried setting limits and alarms; that only worked when I handed someone else the control to set the password on the parental limits so that once 11pm rolled around, my phone became just a phone with an alarm and messaging. But that didn’t stop the scrolling the other 18 hours of the day.

I need environmental and engineering controls. I don’t respect self-imposed limits; if someone else were to tell me “no, you can’t go there,” but they leave me with the key? Eventually I’m going to be the horror-movie blonde who finds a way to justify exploring it and discovering the consequences for herself. For something like breaking self-imposed limits on screen time, the consequences (feeling guilty) just fed back into the reason I picked the damn thing up in the first place.

I don’t want to be scrolling. If I’m using my phone, I want it to be because I want to be – not mindless distraction. I kept my games – Wordle and Squardle and Killer Sudoku. Those are daily things I enjoy spending time on, sipping coffee sitting in the car or on the couch. No guilt. I kept Instagram on my phone, and Messenger – I don’t get stuck in those and lose time. I kept Threads – now that one I have a limit for, because I do get distracted, but so far, it’s quite easy to come back from and there haven’t been any negative feelings. Reacting to everyone for Facebook birthday wishes on the computer was a pain in the ass, and forced me to take the time to do it by hand and actually read the names of everyone who left one.

There’s no guilt for me in deciding to pick up the Switch, or play an extra Sudoku game, or indulge in more smut on my Kindle. There’s no uncomfortable shame in using my laptop to make a post, or edit, or put new words down. To me, that means that my amount of time using screens is within healthy parameters.

It’s also forcing me to face my anxieties differently, especially at work, or with interpersonal things. I no longer have that easy distraction. It might not seem like deleting a few apps and accounts could do that, but I simply don’t use what remains the same way. I’ve sat on less emails, had to apologize for not getting back to people sooner less, been (somewhat) more prepared for things. I’ve managed to do not distract myself away from some emotionally painful things, both work and personal. I’m fact-checking what I do hear, trying to be more responsive and less reactionary. It feels impossible sometimes, what with the current state of the politics, but it’s absolutely necessary to my mental health.

Best of all, it’s re-lighting some of the creative candles that have sputtered out. This right here, case in point; like I said, multiple unfinished posts that may never see the light of internet fame. I’ve been playing more with collage, with markers, with coloring and stickers. I’ve picked Master Class back up, and have been watching the creative folks I follow on Youtube more than fifteen-years old sad music videos.

One of the posts I have hidden away is mostly memes about why we need art; about art as revolution, creativity as response – to injustice, to war, to fascism, to a government that doesn’t seem to want so many of us to exist. I may resurrect it (though Easter Sunday would have been better for that I suppose).

At the moment, however, I feel like I am the center of six orbits that both intersect, and remain out of sync, with each other. I don’t like this much unknown, this much simultaneous change and ambiguity. It’s not comfortable. It doesn’t feel good in my body. But if wisdom comes with aging, maybe this is the evidence – my phone is in the other room, and my battery is dying; I don’t have time for distraction. I’ve cultivated what I am able to take in, and focusing on what I’m able to do, to take action in the ways that don’t empty me.

And so I leave you with this; one quote in one picture, what would have been the capstone to the other post (and the article above about Ethan Hawke’s TED Talk).

Let us grow and age and create, speak and write and do language; and let the 39 dripping birthday candles blow out, and not one more.

Quote by Toni Morrison on a background of library books with an open notebook and quill in an inkwell. The quote reads "This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."

Current Events

“Mama, my belly hurts.” Mine too, kid.

Posted on November 5, 2024 by Queer Mama Rising

I miss Hawthorne maybe the most on Election Day. Voting has always been a family affair, and it hurts that they aren’t here to take Lucy to the polls with me.

It’s a stunningly gorgeous day; it’s already 63 degrees, sunny, with pretty wisps of clouds that don’t create any shade, and fluttering cascades of orange and gold with every breeze. It feels too beautiful for things to go wrong today.

But the leaves that are left on the trees tremble, and the mid-morning shadows are deep. Schools are closed to students and open to registered voters, and the roads feel strangely empty. My mind darts wildly from work tasks to what feels like imminent violence to wondering if this is the last election.

Shit’s scary, and I want to escape, but that’s not possible. The internet says America is waiting for an STD test, a biopsy result. That this time is equivalent to waiting in an airport, where there are no rules and calories don’t count. They say democracy is at stake, that rule of law is questioned, that we have learned nothing from history. They’re right.

The news reports are scary – footage of invoking religious dog-whistles, targeted ads designed to cultivate fear and distrust, pundits outright inciting panic and violence.

My workplace sends out emails reminding me of the benefits of deep breathing, community, and exercising as ways to combat election stress. Shockingly, it’s not helping.

Everywhere I walk and drive, there are signs – on lawns, on billboards, on cars. Even those that support a viable candidate make my stomach clench.

I had to turn off NPR last week when they played a clip of Ben Carson warning that Christians are being persecuted for their politics, just like Trump is, but that God sees that and knows who is standing strong (I’m paraphrasing, because I refuse to look it up). I wanted to vomit.

I am physically ill over this election. I know I’m not alone in that; I have been hearing about the increase in anxiety and suicidality, in anger and violence, in people seeking help to deal with all the unexpected ways the stress is manifesting.

I have educated myself on the ballot questions, and I have cast my ballot. I cannot give any more of my attention, energy, or spoons to this – and that in and of itself is an action. I am choosing to try to distance myself from the pervasive politics, and that makes me feel guilty. I have been of the mind – as was Hawthorne – that the political is personal. When your rights have been decided by court decisions, it’s important to pay attention.

I still agree.

And.

I need to put on my oxygen mask on first. Right now, that means trying to avoid anything else to do with the election until the results come in

My kid has gone to the polls with me for every election since they were born. Their first, I embroidered RBG’s dissent collar on their black onesie – it was days before the first Covid lockdowns, Town Meeting day in Vermont. It was the only election that the three of us were able to vote together in, and Hawthorne’s last.

Eight months later, the onesie didn’t fit anymore. The babysitter and I met up at the polling location to swap kids, and I cast my vote before taking her home and getting each of us a bottle.

2021 saw us in a new home in a new state with a new polling place. We were able to walk to cast our votes, but it was too cold to go to the adjacent playground.

In 2022, the primaries were on Lucy’s first day of preschool. We walked again, jumping in the puddles the warm fall rain had left.

Last year was the first election I missed. My mental health was terrible; it was all I could do to keep things together, let alone leave the house after getting home from work. Lucy was enamored with watching Frozen II and didn’t understand why I was weeping on the couch from both guilt and inertia.

We also missed the primaries this year, because I had been in the hospital just the day before with a significant issue, and I was out of commission. I honestly don’t think I thought about it, but my memory of March 2024 is mostly nonexistent.

But we went back this fall.

It was after work, and I was running late for some reason. My friend picked up the kids from their school and we met up at a playground so she could run in and cast her vote, before I took Lucy across town to do the same. We talked about what was for dinner and what we were doing first. It was the first time my kid has been old enough/verbal enough to really engage in a conversation about elections and voting, and they were much more interested in if I had fresh dill (aka “the spiky leaves”) for the salmon we were going to eat. I hadn’t, and was told, “well maybe you should think about that next time, Mama.” (No, I have no idea where they get their attitude from.)

Now here we are, on a day that feels like the tipping point, and I don’t have any confidence in what tomorrow will look like. I’ve had my plan to vote, and my aftercare plan for tonight, for several weeks.

Even though we were starting our day at the dentist, this morning my kid had a million questions about why we had to go vote before I took them to school. They just had a birthday, so I’m truly living “explain like I’m 5” these days. I said voting is one of the most important chores a grown-up has; it’s when we choose the people to make decisions for our town, state, and country, and when we get to agree or disagree with changing certain rules. We talked about “little d democracy” from the book “A is for Activist,” and I hoped we will still have one by time our library books are due.

We had to take the highway between the dentist’s office and the polling place. We passed under a bridge where Trump supporters waved flags and held up signs about protecting children and Jesus is their Lord, but Trump is their president. There were uniformed officers standing with them; road safety did not seem to be the reason, and there was not enough of a crowd to warrant control.

I was reminded of something my friend had recently said: I’ve managed to hide my dislike of spiders so much so that my kid becomes friends with the creatures, but I’m not nearly so good at hiding my distrust of police. In a group chat with others just this morning, a friend raised concern when her 5 year old said that he hated those guys standing on the corner supporting Trump.

There’s a hard line to walk with kids. We don’t want to teach them to hate in any sort of blanket approach; we also don’t want to teach them to fear that way, either. But the kids in my extended village also have lessons to learn that some kids don’t. Our kids are black and brown and queer and trans and neurodiverse. They are going to learn, someday, that they aren’t wanted everywhere, that they aren’t safe everywhere. There are people who will hate them on sight, and we have to teach them to not respond in kind. There are people who wish violence on them, don’t think they should have rights, or even exist; and we have to teach them to protect themselves and those rights. We have to teach them that not only “of course your existence is valid and matters,” we have to figure out how to teach them that “yeah, the ones that hate you and don’t even know you? Their existence is valid and matters, too.”

Obey the uniforms, even if they don’t follow the same rules.

Protect yourself, but don’t retaliate.

The world isn’t fair, but you should treat people fairly.

It’s not “live and let live,” it’s “try to survive, and let live.”

The world is scary, and I’m not sure what this election will bring, and I’m not sure what I am more immediately scared of – four more years of Trump, or what a Trump loss will incite. Either way, I believe we are looking at more violence and discord and a very uncertain future.

It’s a warm sunny day in November, and I am a terrified voter.

Hawthorne

Entry to the Memory Museum of the Chaos Muppet

Posted on September 19, 2024September 18, 2024 by Queer Mama Rising

It’s been four years since they died, because time is both nonsense and inescapable.

Four years. The memories come in italics now; softer around the edges, less of a bloodied scalpel excising moments to peer at under the microscope, watching the grief-heavy wounds lay open. They weave in and out of ordinary moments like sutures stitching past to present; I rarely flinch at the piercing anymore. The big days, though – the anniversaries, the birthdays – those still make the scars throb in remembrance.

Four years since I was held in their strong arms, since I whispered I loved them and kissed their forehead. Four years since I rubbed my fingers over their baby duck hair, newly buzzed; four years since they could laugh with delight. I think of all that laughter silenced, all those stories that died with them. They are by no means the origin story of my own writing, but on my dark days, I am reminded of all the stories I carry – Hawthorne’s and Oscar’s and my parents and father-in-law – that may also, one day, die unwritten.

Recently I’ve been frustrated with writing, having trouble with the final edits and the publishing aspect of finishing my current book. Someone close to me, unafraid to ask hard questions in hard moments, reminded me that I have Hawthorne’s stories to finish, too – and my own. The combined taste of frustration and “I love you” is familiar, one we share between us over Hawthorne, who introduced us. I’m forever grateful.

And so, I woke up this morning to write, the still-full moon hanging in my window. It is Mabon, when the days and nights are cleaved in two, a changing of the seasons that heralds the rise of the Holly King. There was a partial lunar eclipse last night, and I felt both the weight of memory and the breeze of Hawthorne’s laughter as I watched the little bite disappear. Hawthorne had been adamant about charging our crystals during a lunar eclipse just before their birthday in their last summer, and so we laid them out on the windowsill at the top of the stairs. On nights like that, with the moon full and glowing, we spoke smugly of the lack of light from streetlamps and local businesses. We reveled in the quiet and dark of our mountain, scoffing at our days in the city, so clearly behind us now. We were never leaving this place where we didn’t have to play “were those gunshots or fireworks?” during the summer (they were gunshots) and there were no neon or LED lights to interfere with the moon.

When the pain from their last surgery didn’t fade, and they struggled to hold on to hope, they cursed themselves for trying to charge the crystals during an eclipse and vowed to never do that again. I’ve kept that vow for them, though mostly unintentionally.

I often wonder if Hawthorne had lived, and been somehow left unchecked, if they would have become a hoarder. They were a collector, a maximalist, someone who could fill an empty space in haphazard form and sit happily in the chaos (until they needed to find their inhaler). When we cleaned, I could hand them a shoebox or a junk drawer full of random, stuffed-in things, and that would keep them occupied for the three hours it took me to clear out six totes old clothes and switch the summer and winter wardrobes. They’d tell me stories that the items represented, or reminded them of, or had absolutely no discernible connection to anyone but themselves – and only in that moment. The thread between the item and stories sometimes never revealed itself again.

I’ll admit it took years for me to get comfortable with this dichotomy of tidying. I know I look back with far more fondness than I felt most of the time. I would be able to empty boxes (for a while, it felt like we were always moving to a new place) and find new homes for things I wasn’t allowed to throw away at a comparatively ridiculous rate while they sprawled on the bed, a box of treasures spread before them. This would happen, too, when we were just tidying the house. One day I removed a small bowl (meant for food) from the windowsill to cries of “no, don’t, I was saving that!” only to look in it and see an empty stem of grapes, a small rock, a guitar pick, and some pistachio shells.

“Why, muppet?” I asked, showing them the bowl.

They peered in and shrugged, their signature sound for “I don’t know” sitting in the air between us until their peal of laughter as they looked up and caught my eye. I threw the contents into the trash bag, squealing “Noooo! Grapey! Rocky! Shelly!” as they laughed harder, tears gathering in their eyes. “P-p-p-picky! Not Picky!” By this time, they were on the floor giggling uncontrollably, braced against the chair they’d been sitting in. I shook my head and put the dish in the sink.

I miss their laugh. I miss their stories, and their music.

Dawn is breaking now, the tallest trees burning with color as pink clouds streak slowly across the sky. Most of the leaves are still deeply green here, but I remember that morning in Vermont. The world was turning gold and amber around us, the remaining greens poised to flame into vibrant yellows and reds. The sun sparkled on the dewy grass, the not-quite frost sliding off at the first rays of light. The sky was sharp and blue, horse-tail clouds distant and starkly white. By the time I stepped outside, there were no other cars in the driveway, those of the first responders pulled over on the side of the road instead. Lucy sat in her stroller, entertaining the half-circle of volunteer firefighters who watched her. The men stood far enough away to be able to claim “not it” for a dirty diaper, and close enough that they would get anything she dropped. She babbled and laughed, and that moment crystallized in my mind.

Recently I (finally) cleaned out the toolboxes. I had been meaning to for years, just one of those projects that is always somewhere in the back of my mind (untangling the clump of broken necklaces, hanging up my hats, scrubbing the walls along the stairs where I spilled coffee about knee-height). I put my music on and emptied it, wrench by hammer by screwdriver. I grouped them, then gathered the random hardware – the screws and loose zip ties and washers to who-knows-what. When that was done, I looked back inside; what was left behind could be read like tea leaves.

Hawthorne would have had a field day about this collection here. It would have resulted in hours of stories and laughter, and too many beers. It’s fascinating to me how a handful of random shit could representatively encapsulate them, or at least, the version of them they brought to a shared space with hammers and drill bits. I swear I could create a miniature museum dedicated to my wife, and everything pictured here would be in it, tokens from seasons and phases of their life. They would remind me where the rosary came from that they couldn’t just throw away. They’d talk about JPUSA, and the beautiful girl they fell in love with before being shunned. We would remember EMS stories together, the good and the bad, and the silly flogger they made with a nasal cannula, gloves, and medical tape. They would swim the shark (box cutter) through the air and make up a little song, if Baby Shark hadn’t come out yet. They’d call Ella over, all high-pitched and hysterical, and explain to her that she could not eat this old-ass piece of dog food, but it was OK, they’d go get her a treat (ella had been sleeping until this point). They’d defend keeping a stray match, and they’d want to leave the half-finished toolbox and take the weight and go fishing (we didn’t use weights). They would ask the shark (again, box cutter) to chomp open the Altoids tin, because they couldn’t remember if it was an emergency fishing kit or emergency fire starter kit; clearly it had to be one or the other, as indicated by the stray match and fishing weight. At some point they would have dropped the (BOX CUTTER) and screamed “AH! SWIM AWAY! I DROPPED THE SHARK!”

Elsewhere in the house, I still have the drivers’ licenses of two other people that were not me or Hawthorne. There are countless keys and pieces of bike locks that don’t go together. There are lists and half-filled notebooks with turtles and absolutely no concept of how to chemically write H2O.

In which strand of the thread did they live? I want to find the one where Hawthorne woke up without the blinding pain, without the need for 90-proof medicine in plastic handles. I want the one where we went to couple’s therapy and figured out shit out, and bought a place in the mountains to raise our feral child and sheep and chickens. I want the one where I finally got them on a plane, where we went fishing in Alaska, where we vacationed once in Trinidad. I want the one where they never fell down the stairs, where the medical system believed them and treated them appropriately, where they didn’t lose their wedding ring in the river.

I want the one where our memories come back in bold, in large font, in a Spread Eagle Feminist shirt and fist raised. I want the mornings of serving them coffee and first breakfast while they played guitar, eager for the People’s Jam and Heather’s bagels.

I want them to know their kid loves fresh dill on salmon and barely eats bread. I want them to know the laughter of their kid is just as raucous and infectious as theirs, but with less albuterol and more lung power. I want these things that will never happen.

The ink has long since faded from the receipts in their wallet, the thin paper blank and smooth. There are still moments, hours, days that I am angry, days where grief strips me raw so I can do no more than scream at the sea. And it’s okay. I’m not fighting them or trying to get rid of them. They come, and they go.

I’ll take the memories I get and keep them, become the hoarder of their tokens and their left-behinds. I’ll tell their stories, and let their old guitar be played. I have kept the notes and given away the books. I’ve bundled the zip ties and let go of duplicate tools. I’ve kept the pictures and trashed the hat box. I am down to a single box of nostalgia clothes, tucked away in the closet, and I wear their socks in the winter. I might hoard these moments, but I will continue to curate the collection, and let go what no longer brings forward the immeasurable love that we shared.

And fuck knows I’ll be finding these in random places until the day I die.

Hawthorne, Memoir and Memory

Finding the H in New Hampshire

Posted on August 16, 2024 by Queer Mama Rising

I miss you, in this place that looks like home. I wouldn’t give up my solo time here – it was needed – but I was silly to forget that it’s here in the mountains and fields that I find you.

Through the window of this bus, I can see the cat o’ nine tails that fill the low-lying edge of the next property, and little bunnies dash from the thicket of untamed raspberry bushes between us. Beyond that are the low stone walls that we traced years of journeys on around New England, a hazy field with a few black cattle, and the forest beyond that, rising off into the distance. More birds than you’d care to hear about flit around, but you’d be sitting with your camera, cursing my bird facts as you took me pictures of my favored bluebirds. “UNSUBSCRIBE!” You’d shout when you finally had the shot and could make noise again.

You would have slept on the outside of the bed that took up the whole end of the bus because you were claustrophobic, and been worried about biffing it on the tiny stool that was definitely necessary to climb in. I can hear you guffaw at it being sturdy enough to hold you up, then giggling as you pranced up the tiny steps. You would have touched everything, and wanted me to stitch a couch like this one. You would have teased me for how much I loved it, for the style and the demands it made to be fainted upon.

You would have wanted to break into the tiny shack, with its short door and little window, except you would have wanted me to do it, because spiders. You would insist on peeing outside instead of the dedicated porta potty – until your morning coffee hit and you grabbed your phone to keep you distracted. Because spiders.

You would have been delighted with the spotted frog that claimed the path when the rain fell. You would have laughed too hard to be helpful watching me try to get the fan into the window the first night, dropping it out twice. You’d have loved the sound of the thunderstorm that rolled through the valley, beating on the roof of the bus like it used to on our metal roof.

We’d have talked about how much it reminded us of home, of those first months in Vermont, where it was too hot to stay inside, and we cooled our beer in the river as we made our grand plans. We’d have whole days where we didn’t leave the property and spoke to no one but each other, and been perfectly content.

I wrote my own tarot pull yesterday, out here in the clear air and setting sun. The second question I had was, what didn’t I know I needed to fill my cup on this trip? I pulled the 5 of Cups, a card of grief. I thought it odd; the whole pull seemed odd, truly, and I tried to remain open to the possibilities since the trip wasn’t over yet.

This morning I woke up with songs in my head – you know what that’s like. So I set up a Youtube playlist for myself as I got ready for the trip home and onward to my event. When “Give Heaven Some Hell” came on, which I had added as an afterthought, I sang along (loudly, as I had been all morning) until my voice broke. I cleared my throat, and tried again, and the tears started.

I don’t believe in heaven, but you did.

You didn’t like country music, but I do.

So here, where the pastoral view meets the forest, the Five of Cups suddenly makes sense.

Songs like Give Heaven some Hell help me sometimes, pulling the tears out in safe places where I can cleanse myself of the grief for a few minutes. What I didn’t know I needed to fill my cup was giving myself the space to miss you, to grieve for you, since your dumb ass up and died on me almost four years ago.

I don’t know how many times I played the song, adding Where the Wild Things Are and I Hold On after that. I cried; I sobbed myself empty sitting here at the desk, your motorcycle dreams and your love for me wrapping me like your arms used to. When I was finally out of tears, I walked outside and pulled you back into my lungs, breathing in the clean mountain air until I could function.

There are phoebes here, remember the nest on our porch for years? They say hi, and they miss you too.

I’m half-packed, the bus is damp and getting warmer since I already took the fans out (I didn’t drop them this time). I haven’t finished what I needed to do this morning because I had to stop and write to you. I’m going to see Dierks Bentley this week, who you teased me endlessly about – and I’m going with one of your (our, my) best friends. We’re going to get a little tipsy, a little high, and sing along really loud and really queer. We have lawn seats; I hope it rains and we dance across the muddy grass. We’ll both feel you roll your eyes and hear your snark, and we’ll laugh and flip you off.

‘Cause we miss you, fucker.

I love you endlessly.