Death has walked beside me for much of my life. They walk beside us all, in the fragility of the human body and inescapable mortality. But they have been closer to me than most. The depths of their eyes swim with my memories – my parents, my patients, my wife; my child; my own deepest depressions. How often I’ve stood, my hand pressed to the veil. How often I’ve strained against the threads, desperate to reach beyond this life, calling out to an afterlife I’m not sure if I believe in. Whether it’s to reach for the souls that have slipped through my gloved fingers in the back of an ambulance, or to touch a hand I wasn’t ready for to go cold.
I’m sitting here at the culmination of hell week, on Oscar’s birthday; ten days after Hawthorne’s birthday and exactly two months before the day they left this world. It has been a far gentler week than any of the past eight.
Eight. Eight invisible candles on a cake I haven’t bought, and not sure I’ll be able to bring myself to buy. Not for lack of wanting (because let’s be real, it’s me and cake, of course I want it), but just a complete lack of ability to pull my shit together enough to make it happen on this day.
This day is a struggle. I don’t want to be around people; I especially don’t want to be around other kids. This is the first year I have my earthside kid with me all day, and I’m torn between needing to keep them close and wanting to sink into isolation. It’s a beautiful day. The wildfires in Canada are keeping the skies from turning Oscar blue, and it’s a solid ten degrees cooler than it was eight years ago. I’ll be forcing myself to get us outside – the energy required to turn the screens off and get the bodies suitably clothed and fed is exhausting, and the kid isn’t even awake yet. Lucy is asleep in my bed, one arm flung up over their head, baby face in full effect. Sleeping, not still; alive, yet I check again and again for the rise and fall of their chest.
Multiple times, strangers who see me with Lucy in parks or playgrounds feel like it’s okay to comment that this feral child must not be my first, based on how I react (or fail to react) when said child hangs precariously off some equipment, or launches her body into a splay of limbs on the ground. I know why; I’ve seen the commercials and the podcasters who demonstrate how different a parent acts with their first child versus their second. Pacifiers don’t get sterilized every time they fall, snacks aren’t organic and balanced, and the resilience of childhood is better recognized. I’m not sure if it’s from my years as a paramedic, or having already lost a child, but I know that I watch Lucy with the seasoning of a second-time parent.
I never know what to say. “Haha, first living kid, anyway!” isn’t exactly the answer anyone wants to hear. “Amirite?”
I never want to dishonor my starside child. I talk about him, often; at parties, even (don’t invite me). He is just as present for me as he was when I carried him, this child that made me a mother. He is forever entwined with my DNA, in every cell that makes up my soft belly. His birth was beautiful. His short life, though lived in darkness, was kind to him. He never knew cold or hunger; never knew the horrors of this world, as we kept the TV volume low and played music loud instead. Hawthorne sang to our babies and played guitar right on top of them both, when the veil was visceral and rather easily transversed.
I’ll forever be grateful to the midwives and nurses and doctor who cared for us. Who laughed and cried with me as I labored and H slept. I never begrudged them those few hours of rest, their snores mixing in the air with my lowing sounds of labor. I love that I have so many warm memories of that night, that I remember laughter and even a few giggle snorts. After all, there’s nothing delicate or dignified about bringing life into the world, even still life.
Oscar isn’t really gone, and he certainly isn’t buried. When Hawthorne and their friend brought his ashes home in the smallest urn imaginable, we couldn’t fathom putting him in the ground. He belonged with us. Even if this was all we had of him, he had to stay with us. I hadn’t gone for the ride, but I know that H had buckled in our sweet boy, and showed him the mountains that held our home. Today, the small stone urn sits on my alter, between Gaia and the vase one of our nurses bought and filled with wildflowers eight years ago, a candle that smells of our woods burning beside it. When the flame burns through the wick, the pine and birch scent will stay, and fresh wildflowers will fill the vase.
Lucy has, on more than one occasion, frankly told people “I have a brother but he died.” There’s no hesitation, just a statement of fact. Lucy is tremendously empathetic, but hasn’t yet learned that talking so candidly about a dead sibling makes people uncomfortable. And why should she? Lucy knows about her older brother, an entity she’s lived with for her entire life. I’ve never hidden Oscar, or what happened, from her; Hawthorne and I never wanted there to be any surprise or shock around him. That’s not to say I’ve given all the details, but maybe more than I realized.
Lucy woke up a few minutes ago and came to snuggle up in my lap, which is how we start every morning that I’m not already on the way to work when they wake. I apologized for yelling last night (which, to be fair, sometimes 6-year-olds are just little shits) and told her that this is a tough time for me, and that today is Oscar’s birthday. Lucy just snuggled into my chest.
Lucy said: Happy birthday Oscar… How old is he, if he wasn’t dead yet?
Me: he’d be eight years old today.
Lucy: but he died in your belly?
Me: Yeah… yeah, he died in my belly.
Lucy: Will we get cake?
Me, totally not choking back sobs at all: Yeah. Yeah, baby, we’ll get cake.
Lucy: Okay. Can I have an ice pop?
I’m not sure I answered, because the question was a formality. It’s the question that indicates a conversation is done, snuggle time is over, and she’s ready to go. So my earthside child slipped out of my arms and ran to the kitchen. Because in this house, Death is someone who walks with us. On the other side of the veil, they hold the hand of my son, and listen to my wife play guitar. Life doesn’t stop. The world has continued to go by for eight years; a fingersnap of time.
We do not stop for Death, and I don’t see them stopping for us any time soon.
Content warning: This post is about my personal experience and history with non-suicidal self-harm. It’s not the first time I’ve mentioned this, but I believe it’s the first time I’ve got into this level of detail. If that’s not comfortable for you, for any reason, you don’t need to read on. It’s okay to skip this one.
Today is kind of a big deal, coming at the end of a year that was crowded with all sorts of joys and challenges. Today – a good friend’s birthday, fifteen years since my would-be wife kissed me – marks seventeen years since I self-harmed.
Humblebrag? Nah, straight-up bragging. I’m proud as hell of myself.
This is also the first year I remember self-harm (cutting, in my case) was acknowledged as an addiction. Prior to reading Bruce Perry and Oprah’s book, What Happened to You?, the only people who had ever called out the behavior as an addiction were two of my therapists. Every one of them was a fresh bandage on old wounds that I still feel; each one, a layer of validation I didn’t know I needed to hear.
When I call cutting an addiction, I’m not comparing it to other addictions. I’m using the term as good ol’ Merriam-Webster defines it: a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence.
And yes, of course I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of the DSM-V and ICD-10/11 and found that self-injurious behaviors that are not precipitated by the use of a substance (one of the eleven listed, including caffeine, which seems awfully rude to me) are actually in a section called “Conditions for Further Study” of the DSM-V. They’re referred to as non-suicidal self-injury, or NSSI. And in my experience is a perfect fit. I didn’t cut because I was trying to die; I cut because it was the best way I knew to immediately feel like I didn’t want to die.
Seventeen years ago, I would have hit every point in the criterion – I engaged in it more than 5 days a year, I expected it would provide relief and create a positive emotional state, I had negative thoughts prior to cutting and I thought about it often, it was definitely not socially sanctioned, it was something I did to manage things across settings (ie, work, school, relationships), and it didn’t occur in the contest of psychosis or substance use.
I was not doing it for attention, as the therapists and psychiatrists in my teens told me and my parents. They had no idea of the extent. They only found out when I had a period of anxiety and happened to have a safety pin on me, and was absently scratching at my arm – not enough to do anything but turn the skin white. But a friend saw it and was concerned, and that’s how I ended up sitting in the psych hospital ER with my mom that afternoon. But it was something I had been doing – and hiding – since I was a child.
I remember being around six or seven, playing in the woods behind my house. If there were brambles, I’d run through them. I would try to throw stones and branches up and get an arm or leg under them before they came down. I loved the bruises and cuts and scrapes; loved how it would sting when I got in the bath, or ache when I pressed on the bruises. I did this. I felt this. It’s just for me. Everything about it was for me – my choice when and where and how. I think it was my first cognizant experience of autonomy; well, that will be fun to unpack with my therapist in 2026.
In order to keep it for myself, I knew I had to hide it – that, or explain it. I’m a terrible liar, so often, part of the build-up to cutting as I got older was, how can I believably explain this away if someone were to see it? Luckily, in a way, I figured out that I didn’t need to see the blood to feel the relief, to get that rush of endorphins that let my shoulders relax and my vision clear. I just needed to feel the pain from something sharp, and if there was something to keep the feeling going, all the better. I used a push-pin a lot – poking into the skin far enough for the sting and especially where I knew I’d get sweat in it later. No one was looking where I was using it – my scalp, behind my ears, the thin skin between my fingers and toes. When that wasn’t enough, I made sure to have a damn good explanation. Sometimes I’d blame it on sports – a branch I hadn’t dodged while running, someone hadn’t clipped their toenails in sparring. I blamed the cat once or twice, after she bit me and actually sent me to the ER with cellulitis in my hand – she’d scratch, too, and was an easy scapegoat. Shaving my legs was a good one, too. One of the last times I cut, shortly before I stopped, I said I’d slipped stepping out of the back of the ambulance, and managed to get a cut from the corrugated metal step.
My palms are damp, and my shoulders are tight as I write this. Why this is what I need to write right now, at the end of December when there are so many things I could share, I don’t know. But I need to, I suppose.
Seventeen years. There are some hard truths in those years – times when I came close, times when I thought I’d break the streak because of everything going on. Because, as readers of this blog know, in the past seventeen years, I’ve been through some shit. I’ve lost a parent, a child, a father-in-law, a damn good dog, and my wife. I’ve divorced, married, and been widowed. I’ve lost lovers and chosen family that I never thought I would. I’ve been officially diagnosed with ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, and many flavors of depression. I’ve had arteries in my neck dissect and put me at significant risk. I’ve left jobs and started new ones; I’ve given birth twice, and have the most amazing muppet of a six-year-old. I’ve written books and been rejected by agents. I’ve fought the IRS and gone to graduate school. I’ve lost my brakes while driving, and climbed (small) mountains. I’ve been living this one wild and precious life – not always to the fullest, but I’ve been doing it, and I’m going to keep doing it.
Do I miss cutting? Yeah, I do. Do I think about it often? Yeah, almost daily. In the words of the Goo Goo Dolls, scars are souvenirs I’ll never lose; the past is never far. I don’t have many – I was careful; I never needed stitches, and I rarely cut in dangerous areas or deeply. On this aging body there are four – three thick white lines, and one set of three small thin ones. I can remember each one in vivid detail. The little set I blamed on the cat; and one of the big ones was the time I “slipped” out of the ambulance I was working in. The other two I wasn’t living in a situation where I was making excuses anymore, and had no one to hide them from.
One of those scared me – I had cut way too deep. I felt, for the first time, that I wasn’t in control of the cutting. I know I had other marks on me then, too, but it was that one 2” gash that had me frightened enough that I ended up in ER. I didn’t need stitches, but spent five days in the locked psychiatric unit. I was discharged on a fistful of meds for depression that my ex encouraged me to stop taking because they weren’t helping, which lead to my first experience with venlafaxine withdrawal, landing me back in a different ER and needing sedation. My memory of that time is poor; and not especially traumatic, seeing as I remember little more than flashes. Enough that when I deliberately tapered off venlafaxine after spending six years taking it, my body remembered, and the taper had to be slowed and extended in order for my system to acclimate. PSA – If you ever want to stop taking venlafaxine, please do so with caution and medical provider support.
But that experience didn’t make me stop. I continued for another 21 months. Why? I mean, to my thinking at the time, why not? I had found the boundary and knew exactly how far I could go. I had no reason to stop. Even when my [then] husband begged me or ordered me not to, I just went back to hiding it, easy-peasy.
The final time came on December 28, 2008. We had just finished a call; I don’t remember the patient or the reason we were there, but there’s a clear moment I do remember. I was standing in the stall of a bathroom in the women’s locker room at Sisters of Charity Hospital in Buffalo New York, my boots on, the legs of my pants and long-johns shoved up to above my calf. Chest heaving, I looked at the Swiss army knife in my hand, the blood seeping from the fresh cut. I was in a bathroom stall, for fucks sake, in the middle of the goddamn night, cutting with an old knife that wasn’t likely super clean. I remember thinking, I don’t want gangrene. This would be a stupid way to lose my leg. And then, I don’t want to do this anymore.
I don’t know exactly what I did then; I’m sure I cleaned up and got back to work like nothing had happened, like every time before. Talked shit with my partner, got coffee from a 24-hour Tim Horton’s, and took another call.
After that, the first few months were touch and go. I got so close – got to the point of pressing the blade to my skin, but never moved it. I tried other ways to trick my brain, recommendations from reddit and from therapists. I used a red marker where I wanted to cut; I snapped a rubber band against my wrist; I used the back of the knife to lightly indent where I wanted to cut. They all felt silly to me. At the time, having a knife in my pocket at all times was important, so I didn’t feel like that was a solution either.
Eventually, it got easier. I indulged in the fantasy a lot – like, a LOT. Any time I wanted to cut, I let myself walk through it in my mind. And yeah, sometimes, I still do. There have been plenty of times where the only reason I don’t is I know that I would never hit this long of a streak again if I go back to it.
The desire is still there, the urge always simmering. It is a craving, sometimes far stronger than others, but never gone. I don’t use the rubber band or the red marker anymore, and if I’m not at work, still often carry a pocketknife. I’m still active; I probably could avoid thorns a little more, but hey, hiking in New England carries its own risks. Plus, I’d rather stand in the midst of them so I could lift the kiddo over them.
I’m able to identify and name the times when I’m feeling self-destructive, and I’ve gotten good at reaching out to people who can hear me say that and speak to those parts of me. In those moments, they remind me – just get through this night, and tomorrow you will get up and do it again. They’re right, and I do.
Looking into the DSM characteristics and the published literature of it has been interesting, too. I didn’t know NSSI is considered a “behavior specialty” for borderline personality disorder – luckily, something I’ve never been diagnosed or considered for. Most of the studies done are in the context of BPD, and when they aren’t, it’s with veterans or adolescents. Yes, I was an adolescent during much of the time I self-injured; if I estimate the time, it was a period of 16 years that I was consciously trying to hurt myself, though the method evolved over time.
Sixteen years of self-harm.
Seventeen years since the last time.
Next year, my abstinence from self-harm will be eighteen, and I’m gonna buy myself a scratch ticket to celebrate.
Thanks for reading; it’s not an easy topic, I know. It’s not easy for people to talk about, and therefore, it’s something I feel like I need to talk about. If one person out there feels less alone in their struggles because of what I write, then it’s worth it.
Take care, and see you again in 2026. May the coming year be kind to you, and full of adventures and peace.
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.
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 17th and didn’t start again until 6:34AM on Thursday, July 19th. 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.
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.
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.
Circle up around the kids, especially the teenagers, those fragile babies who are somehow readying to burst onto adulthood.
Teach them the ways.
Our rights, our families, our persons are in danger.
My rights. My family. My person is in danger.
My child.
Do you think any of us will stand idly by?
Do you think I will?
Do you think you have defeated us?
I have lost more battles than this.
I have given more ashes back to the Earth than you can measure.
I have given birth to a child who was not breathing, and never would.
This will not destroy me.
My brain fights me, actively, for months at a time, telling me to quit.
This will not make me give in.
Do you see this face? Do you see the fire in those eyes? She’s still right here, smoldering.
How about this one?
(Tell me this child isn’t gonna fuck some shit up, one day)
It’s my friends grip on my heart that has me feeling any strength this morning.
It’s the palpable love of my forged family for me and my kid that has kept me upright.
It’s time to grieve. It’s time to mourn.
It’s okay to close in, to draw your family and your community close.
Recenter yourself. Recharge. Take care.
And, when you can, give care.
Because if I’ve learned one thing in my journey through the labyrinths of loss and mental health struggles, it’s that the reciprocity has been – for me – the most healing.
When people I have given my love, my time, my effort, to –
They’ve showed up in my hours of need.
They’ve scraped me off the floor, and let me gather myself back into an amorphous shape until I could find my feet again.
For me, for many of us – the people pleasers, the givers, the fixers and the doers –
This is even more of a mindfuck.
There’s no quick action.
There’s no march to join today, there’s no campaign to write for.
There’s nothing to DO
Except
Feel.
Grieve.
Exist.
Go on.
Go to work, go to school.
Return to “normal.”
The laughter will come back.
It might hurt at first, the walls of your chest, loosening from the tension you’ve carried.
Your face might feel weird as it stretches into a smile that isn’t faked.
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.
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.
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.
Queer Mama Rising 