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The Church of Nowhere to Go
It’s Sunday morning, and this one feels especially lonely.
I’ve always regarded November and March as the loneliest months. Not the unloveliest—that honor is reserved for February—but the loneliest. November bombards you with the myth of the nuclear family, but also is rife with mystery and magic. March, my mind, is nearly charmless. Taxes loom, chickens come home to roost, snow storms–and with none of that December magic.
This year March is especially intolerable. The weather is starting to shift, and for that I’m grateful, very grateful. The sun is brighter, the days are longer, there’s a sudden promise in the air. But that promise is painful.
Maybe because half the people I know are vaccinated while I am not. Maybe because my back is too wonky for me to drive very far. Maybe because the cold in March is harder to bear. Right now everything is on the horizon—spring, shots, opportunities, freedom— and it still doesn’t feel guaranteed that horizon will become a Now. I want somewhere to go, someone to hold, someone with whom to sit unmasked on a soft scratchy couch, someone to jostle without consequence on a gloriously crowded street.
It’s Sunday morning, and this one feels especially lonely.
I Wish You Enough
Something occurred to me today as I strode home from the greenmarket with my produce and a bunch of glorious sunflowers that the vendor had slipped into my bag as a surprise.
“This might be enough.”
To be sure, “enough” is a relative term. As I write this, I still don’t have enough in my accounts to cover my expenses a few months out nor do I have a steady income flow. In this way, I am in step with many many Americans, as well as people across the world.
My therapist says that I have a tendency to focus on the bright side of matters in a way that borders on dissociative, a fact that may surprise those who read my last post.
Trust me when I say it takes a lot for me to acknowledge when things aren’t working well. In fact, it’s a muscle I’m developing in real time. I used to fear disappearing into the abyss if I recognized its existence. But I’ve come to accept we can only solve a problem when we can acknowledge it.
That said, having transcended so many hard times in my life has granted me an insouciance I never experienced as a younger woman. Yes, I am still broke as I write this, but over the last few days so many have shared sweet solidarity and unexpected donations that, for this week at least, I have fresh, healthy food to eat and, for this month at least, Grace and I have a place to live in a city I love. Continue Reading →