there is no sunshine without the gray skies
no montreal without marfa
alone in a trailer on christmas day
who is now alone, will long remain so, / will wake, read, write long letters / and wander restlessly here and there / along the avenues, as the leaves are drifting. -rilke
sometimes i think i’ll always be a little bit sad now and that all the things i’ve been through that have changed me—have changed me for good. that’s it, folks. she’s gone and broken. but i also know how it made me chuckle last friday talking about age with jesse’s 22-year-old cousin, geo. he was aghast to be reminded that jesse is turning 47 soon. his mom is 50, and to him that seems ancient, too. i was reminded of how it’s just the context. i had a 40-something roommate in my early 20s and it did seem like a mystical, otherworldly decade from that vantage point, where now, it just appears as a hopeful byway.
the point being…the way i’ve felt off the map and off my course feels like the story of my whole life. but maybe that’s because at 33, 10 years is a considerable amount of the life I’ve lived. 50 or 60 year old me will get a stevie nicks look in her eye and think aw shucks she was just getting ready for the first of five new chapters, she thinks she’ll feel that way forever, but pretty soon really, she’ll have seized the means of production again, and then she’ll be the one wearing big gold hoop earrings and smiling with that big knowing, wisened joy like roseanna at the community garden. you can see all the pain and trials and tribulations swirling around in her irises right behind the warmth and joie de vivre, quite hard won, but genuine. it’s all so palpable, it makes lola weep and whimper at her feet, just basking in her presence. the woman has never even touched her, and she affects my little dog so.
my body itself, i have transformed dramatically at least three times already with nothing but a barbell.
every time i’m on either side of that, i doubt how i could ever possibly look or feel any way but the way i do at the time. i know how it works and yet. the science of time ultimately feels to me like magic.
i can now run a pace for three miles that would have been impossible just a few months ago, would have seemed offensively fast. if i stay healthy, this time next year, i will be able to run even faster, and i will marvel at how i got there from here. it seems like i did nothing. nothing but run six days a week, sometimes easy, sometimes fast, sometimes long, and lift heavy thrice weekly, and sleep exuberantly, and eat carbs and protein galore.
i was born in the winter, but am a creature of summer
i am a sunflower that droops.
i have changed before. i will change again. all it takes is hard work.
and magic.
P.S. this is just a continuation of my tinyletter formerly known as abbsolute truth. new name, new platform, same girl, same vibe. despite every darkness in our world, I’m feeling HOPEFUL, believe it or not. it might be a delusion, but i believe it is a necessary one.
