cenotaph

my heart is a mausoleum

a secret sepulchre

hidden beneath layers of tissue

muscle and blood and bone

tangled vines and twisted branches

conceal its entryway

a dark, warm, bloody vault

never suffused by sunlight

pulsating… vibrating… rhythm

behind fleshy, bleeding gates

my most sacred treasure lies

and breathes, and laughs, and loves evermore

it is you,

it is you,

it is you.

2 and a half (part 1)

It’s been two and a half years, almost to the day.

My hands are clammy and I am fidgeting with the big turquoise ring on my right ring finger. I love this ring. It’s one of the oldest pieces of jewelry I own, something I purchased with my own money from a job I got myself, in a city neither of my parents had lived in before. I purchased it at a store with a kind-of “Abercrombie for hippies” vibe called Urban Outfitters.

The stone is real, and huge and just this side of gaudy. I wear it almost daily, even now. Gosh, those were the days, when I was young and having fun and wasting my potential, secure in the knowledge that I had time to figure out my life.

Watching the trees pass by out the window, I strain to see behind them. Every few seconds, if I purposely blur my vision just so, I think I can see through the forest. I’ve become very good at games like this. They help to distract my mind from what’s happening, where I’m going and why.

We are pulling into the driveway now. I take a deep breath and put a hand on my belly to steady myself. “You can do this”, I whisper. Most of the car ride, when my gaze is not on the trees, my eyes are down, concentrated on my hands, my lap, my feet, anything but the route. I feel like a young girl who is waiting to be disciplined, anxious of what’s to come and fighting back tears.

I only drive this way to see my dad, and this time I know he will not be there at the door to greet me. This visit to his house where we shared so many special moments will be different. The beautiful white house he built. Soon it will belong to someone else – to strangers. I do not want to enjoy the scenery, or to recognize the landmarks, or smile at the familiar small-town shops as we make this dirge, my little family and I. So I look down, and I take deep breaths and I fiddle with my gaudy turquoise ring.

*******************************

who even knows anymore

Chicken and rice and the dimples in your smile

Bean bags and jumbo jenga and

That classic rock playing on the speaker in the living room – all the songs that are too good not to sing out loud, but not bad enough for karaoke.

Tomorrow marks three birthdays without my wonderful, beautiful, strong, intelligent, funny, generous, kind, brave, incomparable dad.

The last birthday of mine that we were together, in 2021, he asked me where I wanted to go out to eat to celebrate. I said I think I’d rather go to your house, and have your chicken and rice. Would that be OK? Would you make me chicken and rice, Dad? I didn’t want to go out, I wanted to go home, to just be with my people and eat warm nourishing food that I knew was made with love, and sit and marinate in this beautiful life of ours.

And my dad smiled a big wide smile at my request, and I watched as he inflated a bit the way some men do when they’re proud, but in a humble way. Of course he would do that. He would love to do that. I kissed his cheek, delighted.

So we gathered at his house, informal and comfortable with bare-foot kids and the TV on mute and my brother with his arm over the back of the chair, telling a story about some kid he knew in middle school. We talked and we laughed and it was loud, the chicken and rice was better than the cake and I told everyone as much, and we hugged and took pictures but not enough of them together.

My heart swells tonight, full of love and joy and grief and pain. I’m so glad I chose to spend that birthday with family, in a sacred place, engaged in conversation and eating comfort food. It’s insane how quickly my world imploded, how unaware we could be of how fragile it all was. Tomorrow I will not eat chicken and rice, because no one makes it like my dad, but I will remember my last birthday as a whole person, and send a kiss to the heavens and hope it reaches him.

love month 2

I love science.

I love painting.

I love extra salty movie theater popcorn.

I love nicknames.

I love rainy days when I’m cozy and warm inside.

I love imagination.

I love cultures.

I love breakfast nooks, and breakfast.

I love witty dialogue.

I love symbolism.

I love antiques.

I love eskimo kisses.

I love salty tears.

I love grand gestures and embarrassing speeches.

I love texture.

I love color.

I love mystery.

I love being kissed on the palm of the hand, or cheek, or forehead.

I love newness.

I love comfort.

I love falling asleep on someone warm.

I love strength.

I love openness.

I love silliness, limerick, and rhyme.

I love spices.

I love that infinitesimal hazy moment between dream and consciousness.

I love home.

I love the natural smell of a person.

I love when a foreign thing feels familiar.

I love deja vu.

I love the scratch of a pencil on sketch paper.

I love.

I love.

I love.

love month

I love history.

I love the stars.

I love language.

I love theory, hypothetical, legend, ideas, possibility.

I love a good strong Irish breakfast tea, slow brewed and then poured over ice.

I love nostalgia.

I love old books.

I love when a person’s eyes crinkle at the corners when they smile.

I love photographs.

I love freckles.

I love laughter.

I love discipline. I love spontaneity. I love contradiction.

I love the way my sons can give themselves over completely to a giggle.

I love family.

I love sunrise at the beach.

I love curiosity, and questions, and the quest that comes before the answers.

I love an underdog story.

I love baking.

I love nature.

I love poetry.

I love music.

I love secrets, and stories, and reasons.

I love delicate, precious, intricate things.

I love.

I love.

I love.

Fast and Curious

I fasted from social media for 21 days – January 7-27. Why would anyone do that? Why would I do that? I like social. I particularly like Instagram, and I watch a few YouTube videos every day. Have a question? YouTube it. Look cute? Tell the world on insta. Nothing harmful about it, right?

Well yes… and no? 

Recently I have noticed that my screen time was up – I mean all the way up like Carl Fredrickson – as high as 14 hours per day. (How many hours am I even awake?) I have been feeling burdened, also, about what kind of example that sets for my kids. I was having some ill-effects, also, including moodiness, drowsiness, poor or blurry vision, poor memory, poor sleep, and mostly I was concerned that even when my kids were talking to me – or to the side of my face while I looked at my phone like a straight-up zombie (Mombie?) – and I wanted to climb out of the dark, insensate, waking coma that my days had become. I am ashamed to admit how much I was in my phone, but it was a lot. 

The 21 day challenge was issued by my church pastor: Please join us for 21 days of prayer and fasting to begin this new year. As soon as I heard about it, I knew I wanted to do it, and instead of fasting from food (not a good idea for me due to past issues with ED and because I work out pretty strenuously some days) I decided to fast from socials, and get my screen time down in general. This is the area of my life where I am the least disciplined, and I was actually scared that I would not be able to do it – which let me know that I really needed to try. My goals were simply to be more present, in my life and especially with my kids, to use the time I would be in my phone to make real connection and to create, to pray more, and I had one thing in particular I was bringing to God daily, and I wanted him to bless and keep me through it, so that was on my heart as I fasted each day, also. 

The following is a record of how it went.

Rules: During this time, I was not “allowed” to use Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Reddit apps and I tried my best not to use the phone mindlessly in general. That meant not picking up my phone immediately upon waking, no podcasts while driving/getting ready for work, no mindless scrolling of any kind, I had to use texting or calls (ick) to communicate. Other than that, I was free to use other apps as I needed to and I do use my phone for work so that was still fine. Mostly I used my phone related to bible, workouts, and cooking. I also used my “Notes” app anytime something popped to mind that I thought I might want to write down later (this post is later).

My observations:

• Thinking about the prayer and fasting as I walk out to my car today (1/10/24). I noticed that a worship song called “You are worthy” is in my head. It’s just me singing “you are worthy, you are worthy Oh Lord” over and over in a loop in my head, as I don’t know the rest. I contemplate that we humans are created for companionship with God, we were created to worship. So… is this like a factory reset? Is a social media detox like returning back to, or closer to, our purposed state?
• The other thought I had (still 1/10/24) is that I noticed yesterday and today that my screen time overall is down 62% from my “normal” usage. My first thought is, “good golly, I spend a lot of time on Instagram”. But I think it’s more than that: I think that being sober from the internet makes me want to see just how clearheaded I can get. I’m less likely to pick up my phone for texts or Amazon orders or to check emails because I don’t want to feel attached to it, and I feel less of a need to be attached to it.
• 1/11/24 Fewer selfies. I guess because I have no place to post them? No one to “prove” my workout to or share my deeply profound thoughts with. Except if I decide to do that in my actual real life… Went to my regular dance studio and started to take a boomerang, and I can’t, and who would want to see it anyway? Prevention of self-absorption. Less documenting of the banal.
• I have noticed today that I sometimes have more anxiety. Or maybe the same amount of anxiety, but I feel it more. Nothing to numb it or distract.
• Today 1/12/24 I got bored. Boredom’s gift is creativity. On a whim, and after enthusiastic agreement from them, I started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone aloud to my kids. One night we all dressed up as characters from the book, using items from our own wardrobes, and guessed who we all were, and took turns reading. It was fun. It was connection. It was also private, un-photographed, and undocumented (except here).
• Bargaining, but not in the way you’d expect. Each time I go to pick up my phone, I ask myself, “do I really want to rack up screen time just for ______? A YouTube workout, for example, will cost me 30-45 minutes. And yes, YT is technically not allowed but on freezing dark mornings at home I do sometimes lift weights and follow along. 
• 1/12/24 Prayer doesn’t come easier. This one is a wee bit surprising to me. I thought with all the free time and some newfound discipline I would be spending a lot more time in prayer, or at least want to. Studying God’s word is still not my first instinct or reflex in the morning and it doesn’t feel great to admit that, but I’m working on it.
• Less gossip is a major side effect. 1/15/24. Some things happen or conversations are had, and I can’t skip over to the DMs and say “guess who I saw” or “you won’t believe this message I got”… not that I do that often but a LOT of people who are “in my life” are really only on this little hand-held TV. So I don’t know what’s going on with them organically. That’s weird. The gossip thing is good, too, but also it’s a challenge not to “chat” with any friends after years of doing it.
• 1/19/24 If God doesn’t fill your heart (and your time) something else will. Meaning that when you leave it open, you’re giving opportunity for lots of things/people/ideas/behaviors to be introduced or take hold. There are so many things vying for your attention and your (extremely limited) time on earth. What is the most important thing? You can tell by how you spend the most time, right? Who or what is sovereign for you? (This is me asking myself, not judging anyone else.)
• 1/19/24 Related to that last thought, and I think super important to note: Social media is certainly not the only way to waste time. On a screen or otherwise, it’s easy to find distraction, and removing social media does not automatically mean you are doing it right.
• 1/23/24 Social media is boring, I keep thinking. I am not missing it and I have not felt as tempted or as torn as I believed I would. I seriously was nervous to commit to this challenge, or to tell anyone I was doing it, because I thought I’d have major withdrawals and fail at it. Also, and this is a great one, I’m not as “influenced”. I have noticed this week that the only thing I have purchased from the internet, aside from some items for my kids, is books. 

Oh! And! (Probably the very hardest part for me) - During the fast, I was not allowed to listen to any ambient noise. I have read recently about what effect listening to, for example, rain sounds while sleeping has on the brain, and I wanted to try to stop doing that. Some scientists believe that listening while sleeping may not allow the auditory system to shut off/rest at night, and may interrupt the natural sleep process over time. The jury is out on this, but I do know that I have become dependent on my light rain (shout out to The Relaxed Guy on YT!). In the spirit of breaking addiction/dependency, I had to at least try to sleep without it. 

(I also used to fall asleep to Pride and Prejudice every night. It’s a comfort thing, when you struggle with anxiety or any kind of trauma, at least in my experience, you crave routine and dependable things, so this was that for me. But just like the rain sounds, the flashing lights and constant stimuli even if I was not totally conscious, were possibly having ill effects and again, I wanted to know that I can live without them.)

Y’all… my dread over this one was REAL. I have loud neighbors, with barking dogs, and I just did not think I could live without my rain sounds. BUT the one I love to listen to is a 3 hour loop and that would mean I start the day in a deficit of 3 hours, and I wouldn’t have an accurate idea of time spent on phone, so I had to cut it off. And I did. Strictly. I can proudly say, three weeks later, that I did learn to sleep without it, and had maybe 3 nights of poor sleep out of the 21, so that feels like a win. Two of them I had some panic, but I got through it, and it’s super valuable to know that I can calm myself and regulate without any other assistance.

I am happy to report that I made it. My screen time was way down and I learned that I can live without the soul-draining device I’m constantly told I need in order to live. The bad news is, this past week since the fast ended, I’ve dove (diven?) head-first into the deep end. I caught up on messages and returned to scrolling and listening to music. I have not re-incorporated sleep sounds, and I do not plan to. Moving forward, I hope to fast again and for longer periods of time, as I like how it made me feel. I’d encourage anyone reading to give it a try and see how you feel after a couple of weeks being “unplugged”. 

x

Thoughts I’m having while drinking tea tonight…

Why do I talk about death so much?

Well… the most significant people in my life up to a point all passed away in the span of a few years, and all unexpectedly. No long illness or time to prepare. One day life is normal and the next day it’s shifted. Parallel. Other.

And they weren’t just significant in my eyes. They were cool people. Good folks. Strangers used to talk to me about my grandparents, my dad. Tell them hello for me, they’d say, or ‘I remember when’.  Now the people who knew them are dying too. The ones who shared dinners or saw them at church or remembered when. They are all leaving. So what happens if I don’t talk about my loved ones, don’t say their names, tell their stories? 

Some kind of metaphysical black hole, I think. I don’t want to find out.

When I talk about death I’m talking about the people I could point to, as a way to explain myself, as a map to who I am and how I got to be. They gave my life meaning, and me a sense of belonging. Now, I don’t have that, and I find myself grappling at the frayed edges of a faded papyrus chart, tracing my fingertips over ever-fainter sketches of a land that it seems only I have been to, trying to convince others that it does exist. It did exist. I’ve seen it. I was there.

I can never go back home, you see? Home has been buried, and cremated, and scattered out to sea. It was wonderful, and warm, and safe, and real. All I have left of all I have loved is a memory that feels like I dreamed it, made it up. Because no one else has seen it, or remembers it, or cares.

So I talk about it, to remind myself. To steady my heart, to try to re-orient myself with a world without them, without home. To remind others. I came from somewhere, even if that place is no longer. I remember it. It did exist. We were there.

Maisie, part one.

When I opened my eyes, the goblin face had disappeared.

Lying on my dark green velvet bedspread, facing the ceiling, my eyelids flutter open and in an instant I am transported from whatever world I just visited back to real life. 

My name is Maisie, and I’m going to die today.

As I lie here contemplating death and all that it means – what will it feel like? Where will I go? Should I write a note? Will my friends be ok? Will I still get hungry as a ghost? – I study the textured firework pattern in the ceiling. Silent celebrations, I used to call them, imagining that my bedroom was just so excited about bedtime that the ceiling was having a party. The fireworks are made with something called a slap brush. I remember watching one of these firework ceilings being made, when I visited a home under construction with my dad. Years ago, my dad built houses for a living, but he’s dead now.

Anyway… before I drifted off this afternoon, I found a goblin in the drywall. Kinda like how you see shapes in clouds? Each white firework-burst is the same, but also different. Like fingerprints. The slap brush touched my ceiling maybe 500 times and left 500 unique prints, and this one looked like a mean goblin. His face was menacing, rude. The way people look at you when they don’t know you but they already know they don’t like you. He would probably be happy when I died.

I can’t find him now – the goblin. He was there, a part of the ceiling, and I woke up and he was gone. All I see now are fireworks, and one puffy white dog with a nose shaped like a capital “G”. Maybe I made the whole thing up as I was losing consciousness. Or maybe the goblin was real, and when I fell asleep he went back to his goblin house to make a mold and cobweb sandwich. I shrug to myself. ”Oh well”, I sigh quietly to no one in particular.

My dad is dead, I know I mentioned before, but I still see him. Sometimes he shows up here, in my room, and talks to me. Mostly it’s pep talks or talks about what I’m wearing. Isn’t that just like a dad? He was here too, before I fell asleep, when the world was ending and I was uncharacteristically calm.

(dad convo here)

I must have stared at this ceiling for hours, thinking about my body and why it had decided to betray me. I’ve always been pretty nice to it. Ok not always, there were some months when I ate a LOT of fast food and candy and sat around playing video games where you have to chase cows and chickens and get them into the barn before the farmer gets home. (Resulting, I’m sure, in some percentage of brain deterioration.) But mostly I took care of myself. According to the doctor at my check-up last year, I was as healthy as they come. I ate right, drank water, and exercised. I tried to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, meditate, and avoid stress.

So why did my body decide to kill me? I probably have one of those bodies that LIKES fast food, I think. All that health food made it angry and now it’s growing tumors to get back at me. Stupid hedonistic body. Ugh. I feel so swollen. I am lying still in place with my feet on the comforter, knees up, one hand on my belly and the other at my side. I’m crying. I didn’t realize until just now that I was crying. I look around the room to see if anyone notices, even though no one is here but me. Still… I look around, wondering if the goblin can see me or if he’s moved on to some other ceiling by now.

My belly is full of tumors, full of fluid, just… full… and I feel like a hippopotamus who has just gone on a rampage and eaten an entire village of terrified – and probably very nice – rice farmers. My feet have fallen asleep, but I dare not move them, as lying in any other position would cause me immense pain.

When your body hurts for a long time – weeks and months – the pain is inescapable. It’s there when you wake up, when you shower, when you talk to your teachers about your missing assignments, when you sit in front of the fireplace on a cold Saturday morning twirling Fruit Loops between your index finger and thumb, too full from all the death to eat breakfast. 

When your whole life is pain, finding a comfortable position to sit, or stand, or sleep, feels like finding treasure. You’d give anything not to lose it. I reposition my feet ever so slightly, take a deep breath, and close my eyes. If it’s true that sleep is the cousin of death, maybe this counts as practice.   

Treasure

“I want to make all your fantasies come true”, he whispers softly in my ear, before turning to look away from me and back towards the sunset we have just watched together.

My eyes begin to well up with tears and I get a catch in my throat. I clear it – a quiet “ahem” – and blink the tears away before he can see the effect his words have had on me. He is trying to be sweet. I know. I wish I wasn’t so damaged. I wish I wasn’t so… well, … me. I wish I could tell him in words that would make sense that my deepest, truest, most primal desire is not what he thinks it is.

My fantasy – the thing I imagine and long for and throw pennies into fountains for – isn’t a house, or a car, or even to win a game show, as cool as that would be. My fantasy is simply to be loved. Oh, to be a woman who is seen through the eyes of a man who thinks he has found the last true treasure on Earth! To be admired, cherished, kept safely in the arms of another. It is all I have ever wanted, and it is the only want of mine that as of this moment, has eluded me. I don’t tell him. I don’t know if I will ever tell him, but for now, I choose not to spoil the moment.

You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Perhaps I do.

This is womanhood, no?

We carry the world.

First in our wombs

Then on our shoulders

At all times in our hearts.

We are designed to carry. I’ll be alright.