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.
Just a few months ago, in one of my many notebooks, I scribbled down that I couldn’t wait to welcome back June me. Now that it’s here, it’s almost disappointing; I feel far more subdued, far more anxious. I feel the things I associate with November and winter, not my favorite time of the year.
I love summer and Pride and hot weather and sunshine. I love the thick, lush canopy of leaves that erupt from every stick that survived the ice and wind of the winter. I love the extra hours of sunlight – not so much the fights that come from trying to put my kid to bed before it’s dark – but the extra time that I take, that I am granted by the natural world. The longing for my home in the mountains doesn’t slice quite as hard when I can raise my eyes from typing and see a spectrum of broad-leaf trees, and pines that seem to relax because their friends and neighbors are visiting again.
But this year, June dawns grayer and cooler than expected. Whereas the turn of the calendar always filled me with life and vibrancy, this time I find myself struggling with motivation and a level of anxiety that is usually reserved for fall temperatures.
Pride season always fills me with hope and gratitude; this year, those burgeoning emotions war with trepidation and a near-existential dread. It feels like more than I have the reserves for after this past winter and cool, rainy spring.
As we approach the solstice, I find myself seeking solitude. I am reflecting, drawn to digging into my own shadows. The tumult of the past half-year have found me here, sitting in the same physical place as Mabon. So much the same as then, and I feel so very different.
I am drawing back, recommitting to myself right now; my body, my home, my kid, my writing. The investments of my time and energy, my blood, sweat, and tears; none of it is without deep thought and intention.
I am indulging – no, not indulging, because that makes me feel as if it’s something I don’t deserve or need – I am embracing where my heart and soul are leading me.
I’m no longer waiting for perfect moments and clean spaces – if I feel called to read my tarot, I pull out my cards.
I’m no longer waiting until the house is clean to sit and write.
I’m no longer waiting until the weather is nice if I want to go outside.
I’m not waiting until the kid falls asleep to take care of myself.
I’m not waiting for someone to come over and watch a particular show or movie (though, let’s be honest, how much do I actually watch).
I’m not waiting for things to be offered. If I want it and I have the energy, I take it.
I’m tired of feeling like “deserve” is a word that doesn’t apply to me, that never has. That I don’t have intrinsic worth, just by being alive and here. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t deserve; I’m tired of constantly feeling like I have to earn, to strive, to compete.
I recently bought a t-shirt from a writing conference I am attending that says “Writing is my therapy,” and as I sit here, words flowing from my fingers, I can feel my soul working through some sticky shit.
I’m tired. I’m grieving. I’m frustrated. I’m despairing and frightened.
I’m angry.
I thought I knew anger well. She is but one of my familiars, after all. But there are times when she surprises me. She does not take my hand and smile gently, pointing out the flight of a bluebird. No. She grabs my face in her hands, forces me to look at her head-on, then turns my head to shove my face in what’s been waiting for me to see.
Oh.
Oh.
Thank you, I breathe.
She draws a finger down my spine, reminding me that she is aware of the steel in it, even when I forget.
So I sit here, writing, feeling, one eye on the clock. Today is a big day.
It is Saturday, one week from Midsummer. It is Boston’s Pride for the People. It is No Kings Day. It is my eleventh wedding anniversary.
I have been turning to… well, “faith” would be the easiest way to phrase it, but that feels jarring and uncomfortable. “Spirituality” doesn’t feel quite right, either, but not as icky. “Craft” still means writing. Eh, fuck it.
I’ve been turning to my witchy shit a lot more lately. I shove stuff out of the way on the couch, or the blankets off the bed to spread out my cards. If the dog is asleep and I can get some space from the child, I still take the floor, or even better (and of course, far rarer) outside. I don’t spend (read: waste) a lot of time searching for the perfect spread to lay out, the questions that fit. I’m following my natural curiosity and determining what it is I need, and find that the cards appreciate that a hell of a lot more.
In almost all my spreads these past few weeks, in every deck, I keep pulling the Wheel of Fortune. This card indicates the nonstop movement of life, change and cycles, that what comes will also pass. [I remember someone I love dearly pulled the Tower for months, and I miss them acutely.] I’ve also repeatedly pulled the eight of pentacles (indicating hard work pays off, effort creates progress), the nine of wands (ready and prepared for a fight), the ten of swords (the pain is real, but the storm is passing), and the Fool (adventurous, experimental, possibilities). Again, these cards come up to me through three different decks, at completely different times, and after lots of shuffling.
When I did my yearly pull for my birthday (which I actually did on May 1, Beltane) I rejected the first reading. It was full of angst and anxiety; also my most intense deck, so I tried with one that I feel is better for my creativity. And still, though I accepted it, there was a lot of uncertainty in messages; a lack of clarity in my life, clearly indicated by the cards.
I keep thinking about that. These days feel so uncertain, so fraught. I’ve removed social media from my phone, and I feel better about that most days, but also know that I’m sticking my head in the sand. Whenever I pull it out and get a glimpse of what’s going on, all I can think of is “the fascism, boss!”
So… now what?
Great, I know that I’m angry. I know that the world is constantly moving. I know that I deserve, not riches or success, but to live as myself, love myself, without compromise or apology.
And so, I’ve signed on with a writing coach for six months. I booked a writing retreat and I’m attending a virtual conference. I’m clearing my mind before I get to work, and I’m taking messy action. I’m leaning into my witchy shit. I’m planting gardens and my own roots. I am investing in myself.
I am afraid (I am doing it anyway).
I am creating (I am protesting).
I am parenting (I am resisting).
I am loving (I am rioting).
Here’s to Pride, not just today but always.
Here’s to No Kings, not just today but always.
Here’s to La Vie Boheme, reminding us that “the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation!”
June may have dawned gray, but I vow that I will keep reaching until I can pull the brilliant sunlight out of the clouds with my bare hands.
It’s hard to believe this blog has been live for over four years, and we are quickly approaching the time when I began to take it seriously, and what I consider its birthday. Of course, that ended up being six days before my wife had the audacity to die on me, forever altering… well, everything. I know I’ve mentioned my brave friend who asked me if I was going to keep that promise to keep writing, keep posting, before I even starting receiving the mail that follows such a death. And I have. I’ve fallen off in the number of posts per month over the years, when life and mental health struggles got in the way. But I haven’t stopped writing.
In the past 4 years, I’ve written 74 installments for this blog, along with guest blogs, essays, chapters, letters, short stories, and drafted three full-length books – one in waiting, one independently published, and one about to be.
My name is Riley Adaris, and I write queer fiction.
My name is Eliza de Rodillas, and I write spicy Sapphic romance.
My name is Queer Mama Rising, and I write this blog.
This blog – this soft landing, this expression of the world around me and inside me – isn’t going anywhere. You can still find it right here, in your inbox, or on Facebook.
What is changing is the world it exists in. I have been using Flannel and Ink as the umbrella for my books, and it’s time for the blog to have space there as well. The website will be under intermittent construction for a bit (currently it’s devoted to Riley’s book) but please check it out.
If you’d like to follow me on Instagram for all said adventures, you can find me @flannelandink.
If you’d like to buy my book (and especially if you’d like to leave a review!) you can just click here. Reviews on Amazon are the only thing that pushes the book out for more people to see it.
This blog will return to its regularly semi-scheduled programming next week. Probably.
I want to write about tonight but it is late and I am tired. I want to write about Stonewall, about the cop car that sat there and I wanted a brick to throw for Stormé and Marsha and Sylvia. I want to write about the silver fox I met at the bar, who first captivated me with her existence, then her words, and finally her embrace. I want to write about standing inside The Stonewall Inn, absorbing the history of the iconic place, and meeting Max and Amy and Ronnie while I drank a Manhattan, not because of the city we are in, but because it was Hawthorne’s drink and I am standing in The fucking Stonewall Inn. I want to capture the fierce pride I feel, the depth of grief and despair I feel for our elders and ancestors in the community, for the hope and resilience I feel in the rebuilt bricks and boards around me. I want to write about coming here to New York, away from my child, away from my responsibilities, to recharge and rest and read and write. I want to write about all of this, and I will.
For now, though, I am still more than tipsy from the bourbon, whatever it was that the bartender poured. I’m still high on the strong hug from an attractive woman at the bar, the one who toasted my wife with me when she heard the news. I’m still soaring on the time I get with a close friend who lives too far away, the simple peace that her presence brings with her utter lack of bullshit and unwavering acceptance.
I vibrate with the movement of the subway underneath us, the boards of this apartment creaking as they shift under my feet, wide enough to feel the space between them with a single footstep. I hum along with the dull cacophony of Alphabet City, the moan of lovers behind the surrounding windows, and the coo of pigeons tucked among the crevices of the concrete.
I can’t help but absorb.
The AirBNB my friend found is incredible. It’s like living in a thrift store that was curated with the love and attention of prop masters who have lived in various countries for over a hundred years, and never leaving empty-handed, but always with a deference to the history and solemnity of the items they took with them. Nothing in here feels forced or removed. It feels like a home, more than any rental I’ve been in. This apartment – the furniture, the copious oil paintings, the myriad of knickknacks, tchotchkes, and keepsakes – this is a den of passion and love for art and travel and love itself. There is nothing duplicated here; there is nothing mass produced aside from the garbage cans and what we bring with us. One urn is filled with canes of different heights and handles, one cabinet with salt and pepper shakers. The hats might not match the collection of hat boxes, but they exist harmoniously. The Tiffany lamp with its embedded peacock and cast grape leaves, the busts of iron and plaster and marble, the stacks of vintage suitcases and steamer trunks that tower to the high ceilings; all of it, a labor of love and devotion and joy in the evolution of beauty through over two dozen decades.
I am here to rest and relax, enjoy the company of my friend and experience what I never thought I would in New York City.
I have been struggling lately – we are about 80% unpacked, hitting that spot where the motivation runs out and it’s hard to figure out where Random Thing, Exhibit G is supposed to fit into our new lives. It must, somewhere; right? We packed it up, thinking it important enough to take with us, so it must be so.
I have been yearning, deeply, since recovering from my health scare. Having your mortality breathing down your neck like that can have that affect, I’ve heard. I am desperate to be held and touched, and keening to spend my time devoted to the craft and practice of writing.
I had an author event last weekend, and two wonderful friends joined me to help me sell my book. I almost hit my goal of 15 copies, selling thirteen – and sort of considering the goal hit anyway, as at least two people promised to buy the electronic version to suit their needs better. I felt alive there in a way that felt familiar but still sparkled with new energy.
But I have been out of sorts since leaving the event, carefully packing away my author self and slipping back into the heavy – if comfortable – body of myself as mother, employee, and exhausted. It wasn’t until this week’s therapy session that I realized why it felt like I had gone from feeling so good, so high, to bleeding from my lip as I lay facedown after falling.
This is the time of year I DO devote myself more to writing. It’s when I take my annual retreat – a handful of days away from my kiddo, away from chores and responsibility and adulting, and take myself out into the world in order to focus inward. I’ve been jonesing for it, my body remembering that it’s time to get away even when my brain needed a lot longer to catch up.
Thankfully, this trip was already planned. It was supposed to be a reading retreat – books and tea and snacks, and a few excursions, from somewhere beautiful and unfamiliar. Something to break through the ruts that a hard winter bore down in us, a reminder that we don’t need to stay stuck. We can do more than exist, more than survive, more than tune out and follow where our feet are already pointing.
It’s become so much more than that.
I am reading – currently, an anthology of Indigenous dark fiction (it’s terrifying and immersive, and I highly recommend it). I’m also writing – I’ve added a couple thousand words to my latest book on this trip so far, and I’m only halfway through (both the book and the trip, so, plenty of space). I am resting, I am relaxing and rejuvenating. What I wasn’t counting on was the combination of comfort and inspiration.
The way the light comes through the windows in the morning in a way I’ve never seen before, the Persian rugs that remind me of my childhood home. The paintings and piano that stood in my mother’s living room next to blankets made from southwest sunsets and parasol collections to rival any cottagecore Pinterest board. These are collections, not clutter, and arranged in a way that make this a home, that invite the visitor to sink into the velvet couch cushions and allow themselves to drift.
This makes me feel, somehow, like my dreams are still there, still waiting, still possible. From the little ones of having a space for my tarot cards that doesn’t end up full of other stuff, to spending more time and energy banging away at a keyboard in the enjoyment of writing. In a few days I’ll return home to chaos, but this trip has been a much-needed reminder – I can have this. I can create this sense of home and peace and joy, I can prioritize my home and my peace and my joy.
My friend bought flowers for the apartment her first day here. The tulips are overblown now, stems elongated and the blooms reaching all around like a slow-motion firework. In looking up this place and its history, she decided that the person who curated this amazing place was definitely the kind of person to have fresh flowers here at all times, and she was right. Before I leave, I am going to buy another bunch or two from one of the vendors who use them to color the street side of their open market. I want to give to this experience, even though I know I am taking far more away than I could ever hope to repay.
This certainly isn’t the first time I’ve had to go away to come home to myself. Maybe it’s because this winter was insipid and hellacious by turns, and I’m just burned out. Maybe it’s because those gray days are ending, and I’m simply ready for the color to come back. Maybe I’m just finally fully accepting that the dreams I had, when it included H and Oscar and a homestead in Vermont… those dreams are gone. And, that’s OK. Our family looks different now. Shit, I look different now, and I’m still working on coming to terms with that.
Dreams change, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still follow them. And with a stop on the way including a best friend, a stack of books, and a gorgeous escape in the East Village, I’m ready to see what happens next.
I just opened six new documents in my haste to start writing this. It’s been ages since I felt like I could sit down with the intent to write and the ability to do so, but my therapist reminded me to write from where I’m at, so, there it be.
It’s been a hell of a start to 2024. I’ve had a major health scare, some new diagnoses, a rough medication taper and subsequent change that has absolutely leveled me (stay tuned, more to come on all that another time) and on top of all that, I’m in the midst of moving.
I wasn’t looking for a new place; I haven’t been unhappy where we are, in fact, I was rather content with everything except the commute time to work and other things. I haven’t been able to build the community I want here, so I knew it wasn’t forever, but it was good enough for now. But then a good friend told me about an apartment opening up in her town with an excellent school system and extremely reasonable rent. Over the next few weeks, piece by piece fell into place, and now the second quarter of 2024 will dawn in a new home.
Now, one of the most daunting aspects of moving is packing, and while I’ve managed to reduce the amount of stuff I own, I’m no exception… especially because I’m (not-so-)secretly just three little book goblins with DSM-V diagnoses in a trench coat. Every time Hawthorne and I moved, the two things that everyone who helped us – paid professionals or paid-in-pizza friends – were the sheer amount of books and guitars. Oh, and the heavy boxes clearly labeled “rocks.”
I honestly don’t remember much about my last move; packing and moving away from Vermont was an undertaking that I know I had an immense amount of help with, and very little memory of. The newness of the grief was too encompassing for me to hold those memories. I know a ton of folks stepped up, and while I might not remember everyone by name, I’m forever grateful.
This time, however, I am fully in it. I am packing, and I’m ready to go through things that I know were simply just transported before. To do this, I have been leaning on my friends, and they have been instrumental in letting me process through my emotions with them. I am no longer overwhelmed by the absence of Hawthorne, and don’t feel compelled to keep every pair of socks they wore, every book they bought, or every item they touched. There are still many, many things I’m not ready to look at – our wedding planning, their notebooks, old family pictures – but I am now comfortable letting go of a lot more than I was in those first weeks after they died.
Hawthorne and I had never shied away from talking about deaths, in particular, theirs. They didn’t expect to make it to thirty, and when they did, they spent their remaining years rather shocked that they had. We both had suffered significant personal losses before we met, and since we had met in EMS and had witnessed the cruelty of both the universe and people, there wasn’t much taboo about death for us. I remain eternally grateful for all those conversations, as morbid as they might have been from the outside. I knew their wishes and beliefs, and it has brought me so much comfort over the past few years knowing their death was not intentional. I knew who was supposed to get certain guitars, and I knew to look through any books carefully before donating them.
If we were ever to get rid of a book, we had to page through it carefully first, and make sure there was nothing inside it we didn’t want to keep. It might be a dried flower or four-leaf clover, an old picture, or, as Hawthorne would excitedly tell me, there might long-forgotten money tucked in between the pages (I have no idea where they got that one). So before I even knew for certain I was going to be moving, I began to cull the shelves. I had done a mini-clean out a couple years ago, discarding things we had multiple copies of (three copies of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, for example, or several bibles) or the books on Christianity that extended family had foisted on us, but it was nothing like this. I made piles in the kitchen of books I didn’t have attachment to, or want to keep, or felt like I should. It wasn’t so Marie-Kondo as to spark joy, but if I felt a connection to a book for whatever reason, or if it would be handy to have the knowledge in print (think apocalyptic scenario and I couldn’t use the internet to figure out how to pluck a chicken), it stayed. The object wasn’t to reach some percentage of less books; it was to continue letting go of things that did not serve me.
Unsurprisingly, with that mindset, most of those piles ended up being things that Hawthorne had needed for school. I certainly didn’t need eight different books on Kierkegaard, or the life works of Becker and Weber (sorry, sociologist friends). There were also some things that I remembered from my parents’ shelves that had moved house to house with me since my mom’s death a dozen years ago; I didn’t see the need for 1970’s paperbacks of Freudian theory or a 1990’s guide to local fishing.
Pulling them off the shelves was only the first steps. As books began to lean and even slide down to lay flat on the shelves, I began to feel like maybe I was getting rid of too much. Was I really going to throw away four years of education that I had been supporting? Was I really throwing away memories of conversations and stories and other unknown super important things, that my anxiety brain was trying to tell me? It was a discomfort I had to sit in for a bit. But I let myself take the time to see those shelves with a little space as opposed to jam-packed, and resisted the urge to immediately get more books to fill them. I also gave myself the space to add things back to the shelves if I decided to keep them after all (at the end of it, seven were returned to the shelves; 3 were good apocalypse books, and four were inscribed).
The piles lived in the kitchen for several days before I felt up to actually going through them and pack them into totes for donation. I knew once I started doing that, I was going to have to complete it quickly, or live in limbo with bags and bags of books in my car for who knows how long. [Quick poll, how many of you reading this have a bag of something spring-cleaning to donate in your vehicle right now?]
Finally one evening, with my sister visiting and helping out with Lucy, I was able to start.
The process itself wasn’t bad; flip through each book, checking the back and front cover an additional time. A small pile started on the counter of papers and other ephemera (spoiler alert: there was no money. I seriously don’t know where the hell Hawthorne ever got that idea). I was able to remain rather emotionally distant, since I wasn’t looking at any of that stuff yet; my focus was on getting the books out of the apartment before they got factored into packing. I got through a few stacks, and then the next morning before Lucy was awake, I finished, sitting on the floor of the kitchen with thick socks and iced coffee. I packed up the books into reusable grocery bags – seven full bags all told – and loaded them into the car. I dropped off the kid and stopped at the book donation bin on the way back from the school, and stood in a soft drizzle as I let them go, three or four at a time, into the bottom of the dumpster-sized donation bin.
The time it took for me to go through the books and send them off was just under 13 hours. The four books that remained, and the short stack of stuff I found inside the rest, has been sitting in a pile in the five weeks since. I knew I wanted to write about it, but writing itself has been a struggle; another topic for another blog post.
Now, with my six open documents, I am mid-pack; my sister has stepped in and is giving me the bossiness I need to get things done, and I swear she’s the only reason I’m going to get through this move. Today is my day to work on my desk, and I’ve got the top cleared off except for the things I need daily, a small stack of mail to handle, and the Hawthorne pile.
Once again I find myself immensely grateful for all the times we talked about this. I’m so glad it was embedded in me to go through each book, because this is such a beautiful encapsulation of my wife. The books contained:
A circulation card from a Hampshire College Library book
There’s no title or author on the card, and I wish I could remember which book it came from; I’m guessing it was something they “forgot to return” when they visited a friend at their campus.
A doctor’s appointment reminder for Tuesday, August 5, 2014 at 4:00 PM
A receipt from the Buffalo State College bookstore, paid with Financial Aid
The receipt is a good indication of the first time I heard “fucking Latour, what the fuck is this shit?”
A post-it with Stacey’s number and some doodles
I have no idea who Stacey was or is, but it’s not the Staci I know.
A $25 Lane Bryant gift cheque, valid through July 18, 2010
Two co-pay receipts from Buffalo Cardiology and Pulmonary Associates
An index card with predictions and favorites for RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10
We had to start writing these down, because as the season went on, Hawthorne would forget who we had each picked and we’d argue about which one of us one that season; reading the names brought back such clear memories of some of the fantastic queens from that season, particularly Blair St Clair and Miss Vanjie (still, always, forever my fave)
A blank yellow index card
A blank piece of paper from a notepad that had some sort of design on the edging
A scribbled drawing of a pregnancy craving I had for chocolate-dipped candy lemon slices* on a Holiday Inn notepad
The syllabus for Introduction to Sociology (SOC 100) with Dr. Lindsey Freeman
An empty circulation card for Margaret Mead’s The Golden Age of American Anthropology
A circulation card from the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library for an unknown book, last checked out October 16, 1963
Two general admissions tickets (valued at $10.00!) to see Bob Dylan on July 18, 2013, with listed openers Wilco and My Morning Jacket
This was a fun day; some blacked-out SUVs drove past us and we were convinced they were for the unlisted opener, who was Brandi freakin’ Carlile, and the real reason we went. We only stayed for 4 songs of Bob Dylan.
A black-and-white picture of Hawthorne playing guitar in their early twenties
Their hair is a short faux-hawk, and their ears don’t appear to be gauged yet, so that’s the best guess on age. I’ve seen the other pictures from around that time and I want to say their brother was about 18, which would put Hawthorne at 21, best guess.
A page of notes from sociology class on 2/28/2013
It looks like they had forgotten their notebook and borrowed a sheet of paper from someone else. Based on the notes, this is likely one of Allen Shelton’s classes, but it could have been a different one I suppose.
A term paper for Dr. Staci Newmahr’s spring 2013 sociology class
This wasn’t the graded one, so I don’t know how they did – but I know it was lower than an A-, because they all were, much to their consternation.
An engagement picture of Hawthorne and I leaning on the fence of the posting location where we first kissed
Hawthorne’s social security number written down
This honestly baffles me, even knowing my wife. It was actually written into the blank first page of a book called The Cost of Being Christian; I just ripped the page out. Who writes their SSN down like that?? WHY?? C’mon, babe, what the hell.
Four photos printed at the one-hour photo on 9/3/2000 of someone on a corded phone with the following captions written on the back:
This was taken before you realized you had missed your train.
This was taken when you realized you had missed your time.
When you realized that you had missed your train and it was costing you money.
I didn’t understand the whole “little” things but I took a picture anyway
So I showed these to some of Hawthorne’s best friends, and no one could ID the folks in the pictures, but we did rule out a lot of people. Since I don’t know them, I’m not going to post them here.
The four (non-apocalypse) books I kept each have inscriptions, all from different people.
Destiny of the Republic, by Candice Millard
This was a Bookmas gift from 2016 and has a lovely inscription from my cousin to my wife. Our family swaps books, gifted along with chocolate, on Christmas Eve every year.
Parables of Kierkegaard, edited by Thomas C. Oden
This one has 3 names with phone numbers, an extra phone number from a Rochester area code, and a note to Hawthorne from a friend who visited while they were in the hospital for their asthma. This one also has a scrap of a note with someone else’s handwriting about neurocardiogenic syncope and a tilt-table test. The scrap looks like it was grabbed from a nurse’s station that used the back of misprinted documents, and there’s a timestamp that says 4/26/2005 – 19:30.
Hamlet by Shakespeare, a Dover Thrift Edition
This is “an average teenage girl note” with bubble-dotted i’s, written in pencil, from a friend of Hawthorne’s growing up. If it’s who I think it is, I’ve only met them once, but I cannot bring myself to let go of something from their “BFF!!”
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis
This was an interesting one. There are four lines of what sounds like a poem or a song that Hawthorne wrote down on the inside first page, under the publisher’s mark. I knew that Hawthorne had written songs, once upon a time, so at first glance I figured it was theirs. Good thing there’s Google, though, because once I really read the lines, it didn’t sound like them at all. Sure enough, the stanzas come from a book called The Singer Trilogy by Calvin Miller, which is a mythic retelling of the New Testament. Which made sense, considering the book and topic. Since I ended up handling this one more, I discovered an additional four lines on the blank back page of the book, from the same source.
I love when I find things tucked into old books that find their way into my hands. It feels like a glimpse of someone else’s story, no matter what it is. I feel like all the things I found in our books are just prompts – for memories, for writing, it doesn’t matter which. And while I’m always happy to stumble on other’s ephemera like this, I’m being true to my little book goblin self and hoarding these ones. I want to keep them for myself a little longer. I’ve thrown away the appointment reminders and the blank index cards and the receipts. The little library bits, their papers, the ticket stubs and photos – well, let’s just say when I eventually get around to making that scrapbook, I’ll have plenty of stuff that Hawthorne left to contribute. There’s a lot more to say about unfinished stories, and the threads we leave behind as we move on through apartments and lives and states of being. I’ll be picking at some of these threads another time, from another town.
*If you’re reading this far, and you noticed the asterisk, this story is for you.
So these lemon slices. Pregnant me did not have good taste. Pregnant me got sick at scent of sweetened hot coffee, and really loved the smell of Ella’s joint supplements, like, thought they smelled delicious. Anyway. I had been at a conference held at a Holiday Inn, and had used the notepad at my seat. All I could think about that morning was these candied lemon slices we had bought at Trader Joe’s after one of our appointments in Burlington, and I had been watching too much Great British Baking Show. I thought that fresh candied lemon slices, half-dipped in semi-sweet chocolate with a little abstract line design of white chocolate on it, would be the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted. Now, Hawthorne was an excellent cook, and always did love to make my dreams come true. So I had drawn this little thing to look like one of the signature challenge sketches from the show, and sent it to them. I think I also talked about it when I got home, and then promptly forgot about it by the next day (pregnancy brain was real). A few days later, I was having an angry emotional pregnancy day. I felt fat and miserable and uncomfortable and gross, and my beautiful, wonderful wife wanted to cheer me up. I’m standing at the counter crying and they tell me to close my eyes. I do, and I hear them banging around in the pantry before I feel their arms come around me and they tell me to open my mouth. I do, and they put something in my mouth. I immediately start horking it out, trying to get the offending concoction of absolute ass and garbage out of my existence. “What the FUCK was that?” I’m over here, trying to bend over the sink to run water on my tongue, and poor Hawthorne is standing there, eyes all wide, holding one of the candied lemon slices and a tub of dark chocolate frosting.
“I thought that was what you wanted! I thought you liked it! It was your craving!”
“Oh my god, my cravings are stupid.”
So yeah. They did make me feel better, though not at all how they had intended. We laughed about it every time I had another craving, like wanting to eat the dog’s medicine. We kept that little drawing, and I think it actually lived on the fridge for a while, probably until Hawthorne walked into the kitchen reading something and decided they needed a bookmark. Y’know, like you do.
While I always was a reader (save that anomalous period in my twenties), it’s hard to remember a time when I read quite like this.
Maybe when I’ve been involved in a series; Brian Jacques’ Redwall comes to mind, as do the first five books of a most famous series involving an English wizard student. During my early teenage years, I read everything by Patricia Cornwell that I could get my hands on, about the forensic pathologist whom I hoped to emulate at the time. Prior to that it had been Lurlene McDaniel, the tragic romances of (some terminally) ill teenagers; after that it was Nora Roberts and the approximate six thousand books she’s written, as well as under her pseudonym, JD Robb. By these five authors alone I must have read somewhere between 200-300 books, and that’s not an exaggeration. This is also not to mention the everlasting Babysitter’s Club, Boxcar Children, and Judy Blume volumes that pre-dated any shred of romance or shadow of puberty. OK, so I totally read like this when I was a kid – or at least before college.
I fell in love with public health reading my assigned incoming freshman book, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. Paul Farmer remains an inspiration to this day. That’s the last book I remember before schoolwork took over. I had ideas of being an English major on the pre-med track at that time. That first semester I took two heavier reading courses, one mandatory and one for adolescent lit, which introduced me to entire worlds – the ones that stick with me are Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials. Those books still take up residence in my soul and influence my daily thoughts, that there is something under the surface of everything we see. The next semester, however, I took a class on the American health care system, and that beckoned me on to major and get my degree in public health. Luckily, it meant I got to read a whole bunch of other books – memoirs and sociology alongside the drudgery of biochemistry. I didn’t realize that the accounts of folks living with Downs’ syndrome or paralysis would be some of the last things I would read for a decade.
The dropoff was steep; I struggled with my mental health in my senior year and ended up spending some time on an inpatient psychiatric unit. I can look back now and have compassion for the young woman who was scared and alone, both vulnerable and stubborn. After that, reading was largely missing from my life. It was a combination of the medications (which I definitely needed) and major upheavals in my life: getting married, moving to Buffalo, and knowing almost instantly that it was all a mistake that I couldn’t make right. For the first time, I was watching TV regularly. I’ve seen more CSI, NCIS, and other various cop drama than I care to remember sitting on the couch in my husband’s grandmother’s house. I was still very depressed even if I couldn’t articulate it then. Finally I transferred my EMT card and got a job with the local company on overnights. It took two semesters to finish the few credits I needed to transfer back to actually finish my degree. The year of school days and work nights pushed me to the brink of exhaustion. I’d sometimes pick up one of my Nora Roberts for a bit of comfort, but reading was something, like writing, that had largely disappeared from my life.
Later, in the early days of our relationship, Hawthorne and I didn’t exactly spend our time together turning pages. We talked about it, though, extensively. By the time they left the field to go back to school and I changed companies to be outside the city, we were an official couple. I had a brief window where I’d always have at least one paperback at the ready.
Hawthorne knew I had not been able to indulge in books and reading the way I wanted, the way we talked about doing one sunny day. They wanted me to read more than romance, which I wholeheartedly agreed with, though it has always remained my comfort food. I had felt so stymied that I was intimidated by the sheer number of possibilities of “what to read next.” I will forever be grateful to Hawthorne for gently opening the doors to whole new worlds and drew me back into this beautiful genre I hadn’t begun to explore of creative nonfiction with authors like David Sedaris and Oliver Sacks. They also introduced me (in some cases, re-introduced me) to Hemingway, to Steinbeck, to Jeanette Winterson and Annie Proulx, Truman Capote and Flannery O’Connor. As I returned to the written word, I introduced them to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Tracy Kidder. In the four months between Hawthorne starting school and me becoming the quality manager at my ambulance company, I read ten novels, two of which – Bridges of Madison County and East of Eden – are still some of my favorites.
It was an amazing way to build a relationship, on a bedrock of literature shared and mostly enjoyed. We had some failed trials, sure; I liked Lolita, but haven’t yet tried any Dostoyevsky; they never did get through more than a couple chapters of Nora Robert, and I liked more real science than they ever did. As for the myriad of sociological authors they left behind on our shelves? There’s only a few on my TBR: Proust, Foucault, Shelton.
As I began to read more and more reports for work, I turned less to the shelves again, but never so hard as to forget their importance in my life. Even now I still have a tendency to absolutely inhale the volumes of Nora Roberts, gulping down chapter after quick chapter whenever I stumble across a new one. My mother used to buy me two of her books a year – one for my Easter basket, and one for Christmas. They never lasted a day. Now I willingly go on anticipated binges; I wait a while, cleansing my palate of formulaic cis-het, white, vanilla romance. Then I will frustrate myself trying to navigate the connection between the Kindle app and my library app to blow through four or five that have come out during my fast. I carry the Kindle to the kitchen to get fresh coffee, to the back door to let the dog out, and forget to feed myself (don’t worry, Lucy cannot be forgotten). At the end, I raise my head, utterly dazed and disoriented. It takes a couple hours for the headache to fade and my vision to clear, and few days for my neck to get back to the correct angle from being so intently bent towards the screen. (I’m rolling my shoulder out and correcting my posture now just thinking about it.)
After Oscar’s death, then Hawthorne’s, I have turned back to words. Writing them, reading them, watching my tears soak into the ink. I pushed myself through Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking and thumbed the dog-eared pages of my favorite romances. When I began starting to piece my new life that I’d been given back together, I filled my shelves to bursting (they were already quite full) with self-help books with titles like Girl, Wash Your Face and You’re Not Lost. They had some good lines; there’s plenty of marginalia to go back to, but over self-help books just weren’t that helpful.
I began reading again, deliberately, in 2021. That year I started nine books and finished five. One of them, Too Like the Lightning, remains unfinished – not because it isn’t amazing, but because I rarely have the time to devote to being totally immersed into a world so different than mine. Ada Palmer’s glorious stories demand of me a minimum of two uninterrupted hours to make any progress.
In 2022, I made daily reading a habit I wanted to keep (with wavering success) and set a goal of 26 books for the year. Counting a 500-page novel draft from a friend, I hit the goal with an eclectic mix of gay romance, mainstream fiction, Brene Brown recommendations, and nonfiction books about the death of the body. There was the beta-read novel for a friend, two audiobooks, and at least 5 Nora Roberts on my Kindle.
My goal for 2023 was 30 books. I planned on pacing it out, but then someone gave me TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea.
Since then, I have had an insatiable need to stare into the pages, my eyes racing over the text, and never feeling like it’s enough. I feel greedy, possessive; I gather these volumes to me, unable to wait for the paperback versions, needing to feel the weight in my hands. The scent of new books, old books, the dust and the ink all further whet my appetite for them. I long to be in bookstores with infinite money and infinite time, and have visited three different libraries already this year.
On my little retreat in Provincetown; I brought several books that I had started or wanted to read, a mix of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction books on writing. To no one’s utter shock and disbelief, it turns out that when I have stretches of time to myself, I still will find a comfy spot and dive into a book until something interrupts me. I finished two books I had begun prior to the retreat, and read two more completed, and started a fifth. (I also may have visited every bookstore in town and purchased an additional ten titles but that’s not the point. In fact, I should be commended that it was only ten, especially since one of them was a used bookstore.)
I thought, okay, this is a little vacation fluke. I can’t keep up this pace. I’ll fall back into my old ways and struggle to get ten minutes of reading, my little goal, in per day.
Turns out I was only partially right – I couldn’t keep up that pace, but holy crap, I am still reading more than I have in years. I’ve finished, what, three more books since returning? In three weeks? I am two books ahead of my goal per Goodreads.
I keep a new picture on my phone screen to remind me that “what you are not changing, you are choosing.” I have been trying to get off my phone for a while. It’s hard. I like the distraction, the immediate dopamine hit, and I’ve also discovered a particular animal sanctuary whom I’m a little obsessed with. But man, I do not want to be staring at that little screen as long as I do. I’ve set limits on apps – 30 minutes on Facebook, 60 on games; but I can easily make excuses to not follow the self-set rule. I find ways to circumvent it, opening things to read in my browser instead of Facebook, subtracting the Maps and Facetime minutes. Bad mental health days see the times spike; good days, where I hike or create or connect with live people, those days see the times drop. So, too, the days I spend reading – and that’s what I want.
I want to live a life where I do read voraciously, where I am spending my energies in saturating experiences like books or travel or laughing with friends. I want to be caught up in my life as I get in the lives of characters, to be focused and mindful of the story and my place in it. I want to think of seas as cerulean and feel my heart pound for fumbling first kisses. I want to remember the hum of magic just under the surface and the feeling that we are never really alone in the woods. I want to find the worms when I dig my hands into the earth, brush dandelion seeds from my daughter’s hair, and show her the world beyond these screens. It’s not easy to get away from all the distraction, but oh, it’s so worth it.
This was long and rambling. Thank you for reading. I hope you keep reading, anything you stumble across. Blogs and books and cereal boxes and bottles of shampoo in the shower. It is thrilling to me that my words can be part of your reading journey. Thank you.
Queer Mama Rising 