01. THEN I STOP & I SEE

Mar 27, 2022

hey, friend.

i don’t want march to end without saying hello, though i am writing to you after starting and stopping several newsletters. i kind of wonder what I am afraid will happen if I don’t write to you…

i’m feeling all sorts of things lately and thinking a lot about the functions of grief and forgiveness and forward movement. at the top of the year, i buried my kitten and said goodbye to my grandmother’s earthly body two weeks later. i’ve been one hundred versions of myself since. for most of jan/feb/march i intuitively filled my home with friends and food and excitement the way that my grandmother used to. i said yes to new movement and new friends and new places. and now i’m slowing down and settling into all the yes. still cooking and crying and dancing and grieving. still honoring my dead. still doing what the living do. just a bit slower.

this letter i’m just sharing a few things that have entered or reentered my orbit and have been living in some corners of my body over the past month.

i’ll talk to you soon.🫀

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil 
        probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes 
       have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the 
       everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the 
       sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in 
       here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the 
       street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, 
        hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee 
        down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: 
        This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you 
        called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the 
        winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and 
        more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of 
       myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a 
        cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat 
         that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

loveloaf_

A post shared by Alexis (@loveloaf_)

block print by cancer kin, alexis aceves garcia ❤️

a few baby collages i made to make peace with myself after reading old college dance evals that made me 😵‍💫:

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II, Scene IV

PROTEUS My tales of love were wont to weary you. I know you joy not in a love discourse.

VALENTINE Ay, Proteus, but that life is altered now. I have done penance for contemning Love, Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, With nightly tears, and daily heartsore sighs, For in revenge of my contempt of love, Love hath chased sleep from my enthrallèd eyes And made them watchers of mine own heart’s sorrow. O gentle Proteus, Love’s a mighty lord And hath so humbled me as I confess There is no woe to his correction, Nor, to his service, no such joy on Earth. Now, no discourse except it be of love. Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep Upon the very naked name of Love.

arnell’s full moon musings in two-headed dispatches: