1. It feels like my skin will turn inside out and then burst into flames whenever I hear The Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime on the radio. "and you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife and you may ask yourself how did I get here?" He would grab me and dance with me and tell me that song made him think of me and how lucky he was. And now...same as it ever was.
2. It looks like the hernia to the right of my belly button that has grown so big I have named it Sigourney because it is a fucking alien. And it arrived as I reached for a box high up in the corner of the top shelf while I was packing up her room.
3. It sounds like no one saying they are proud of me.
4. It looks like the tiny stuffed lion with the crooked whisker that watches over me from the shelf by my desk and the story of how her high school bf bought it for her cause she was a Leo and he bought himself a bull because he was a Taurus and how she read her horoscope every day in the paper and would tell me over and over again "your father didn't believe in astrology but Jack did" and how that one guy, and that one gift from him so long ago made her feel so seen. I still read Leo every morning for her. And for my besties. 3 of my closest most trusted friends in this world are Leo's. Coincidence? hmmm
5. She would call the house and ask for me and say come over at once I feel like rearranging and I would run over there and we would do the whole house and now as I am slowly redecorating and bringing pieces in and moving pieces out and choosing paint and re-hanging the artwork and revignetting and fussing over the plants the missing is palpable and I wish i could call her and say Auntie I am rearranging, come over at once. As Sarah M. Broom said in her book "The love she poured into creating each space, she says, is something she inherited. “All of my family and the women who compose me are here. Everything you see—just the detail and the care—that’s my grandmother Lolo and my mother Ivory Mae in every single moment in this house. These were the women who taught me what it means to make a place and how to create warmth. They taught me to collect beauty.” I look around my home and the women who compose me are here. My Aunt taught me everything I know about vintage and decor and style and encouraged that part of me. She taught me to collect beauty.
6. I feel it like white hot lava burning up my bloodstream to my ear tips every time I read about a loved one dying alone in this pandemic and how I personally want to cobra to the throat every single fucking person who marched in the latest and largest anti mask rally last weekend. The day after we had our record number of cases ever and I know I will never get over the collective grief and burning anger of this past year alll in the name of the economy.
7. It's always in a weird heart palpitation when I read every story about how they reconnected on facebook after so long and fell in love all over again and how he took that away because we were too young to handle the intensity but could easily handle it now and i love hate all those stories and every time my heart does an actual little flip of pain and regret.
8. I am losing my jawline and now my hoops have to be bigger and my beads longer and never ever a crew neck because we are a jowly people and at 53 I look more like them now than I used to and it's weird to catch a side glimpse because I think for the briefest second they are here.
9. My fern is thriving after a lifetime of fern murder even though both of them had ones that filled their front windows and I wonder if they have a spirit hand in this fern's success or if I am at a place with him gone and just me and Lola Esmeralda Moon Floof that the conditions are perfect for a thriving fern. I wonder.
10. I catch my breath a little every time I turn my phone off to completely disconnect because for years i couldn't turn my phone off at all and still now so many moons later that voice says I need to be available. But I don't need to be. For anyone or anything unless *I* choose it and so I turn it off and breath in a little deeper because there are no middle of the night calls coming but that first catch, it never goes away.
The prompt - at its most basic - asked where does grief live and how does it feel?
This is day one of Being Here, Human’s grief writing workshop. Seriously one of the best things I do for my self care.
(Day 12 of Effy Wild’s blog along)