adlibitum-writings

[adlibitum-writings]

[adlibitum-writings]

When I was in eighth grade, one of my friends asked if I thought I was pretty. Most girls that age are accustomed to saying no right off the bat - it’s a humility thing, partially, because we didn’t want to get called conceited or stuck up, but I think a lot of us actually believed it. I know I did; I’ve always had weird features, not conventionally pretty by most means. I think I'm okay with it, after all this time, even if I feel sick at old pictures, and I analyze all the details of my reflection like it will change something. Regardless, I'm not a solitary case in feeling less than what's expected.

But one time I washed my hair and decided to try putting it up in a t-shirt, like I’d seen other girls do online. I flipped my hair into the shirt, tied it up in the front and made sure it was all in the wrap I’d made, and I glanced at the mirror and went a little still. I had no makeup on, none of the stray hairs I always pulled down to frame my face; it was just me, bare-skinned with my hair in that t-shirt wrap, and with my jawline and the shape of my nose and the way my cheeks were kind of pink, I thought of the girls in paintings, the English milkmaids with their hair pulled back in bonnets or scarves. I tilted my head in the mirror and saw a portrait.

I didn’t feel pretty, I don’t think, but I felt like art.

[adlibitum-writings]

He spent most of his time tucked between bookshelves. When you first met him, surrounded by a stack of weathered novels and colored green by the stained glass windows he sat beneath, his face was duly downturned to the open pages in his lap; he didn’t notice you, and you didn’t bother him. But you came back.

He was never without journals, never a book absent from his hands. Eventually, you talked to him - you asked him about his studies, and though his voice was quiet and eyes averted, brow furrowed and the rare smile tight, he talked for hours about the things he read. He told you about kings beheaded by their people, heroes deified after death and committed to memory in constellations, civilizations built and destroyed; stories across cultures, myths and legends and folk tales and fables; the words of poets and scholars, fraught with meaning and renown, and the words of everyday people with something to say so desperately they could only write it, again and again, imprinting themselves in the world as memories woven into paper and ink.

You asked him, only once, why he bothered to read about people who had been dead for centuries. People who would never know that he studied them so deeply. You couldn’t fathom why such a short life would be spent dwelling on a past it would never return to.

He looked at you that day, earnest and bright, and said, Because they’re us.

He told you the story of Greek lovers who wrote that they would be remembered, even in another time. I remember them, he told you, voice feather-light and fingertips following the words on his pages. They thought they were alone when they were alive, but they had hope that someone in the future would see them, that someone, somewhere, would find them and know they were there. Humanity has this faith in the memory of writing - as long as it’s written down, we think we’ll never be forgotten. Someone will find us eventually. And I see them now, he gestured wildly, to the books around you, to the world beyond the emerald window, to the pair of Greek lovers and their lonely, patient hope. And I know, even thousands of years later, that we’re not so different.

You came back to the library one day and found his spot empty. The world outside the emerald glass was grey, broken, and in some parts still smoking, but his absence and the journal left in his place were colored a gentle, shining green. You recalled his words from that moment, and you knew they were a promise; humanity would look back and see him and know they were one and the same. Someone in the future would find him.

For the first time, you thought that maybe someone would find you, too.

[adlibitum-writings]

There’s a grace to people. It’s inherent, and collective - they’re linear in the way their hands fit together, musical when their voices overlap, gentle with how they smile and watch others with sparkly eyes, and they move like water, fluid and aimless but certain. They’re vessels for a billion lives; every footstep they take has never been taken the same before, and every one is fresh over a million in the same spot. Sunlight makes halos in their hair, and their eyes look like glass when they cry, and they laugh at touch and surprises and little stories, and they’re miniscule to the world beyond them but they’re persistent, brilliant, undaunted.

She sees them in her fire, when she watches the flames climb and sharpen at the tips. It carves their likeness in the still air; an ache settles in her chest at the sight of them, a yearning that flickers and spreads inside her as she stares. Her wrist shakes when she reaches toward them.

She holds an unsteady palm over the flame instead, watches the fire turn her skin gold and lined with shadows. Light colors the tip of her nose and curls over her face; there are no mirrors in the hall, but she longs to study her reflection over the fire, to trace every flickering shadow across her features and memorize the way the flames paint her. Do her eyes look amber in the glow? Are the lines of her smile brighter here? Does she look kind, warm, human, or is she dimmer against the light? She pulls her hand back to her chest and feels the heat of her palm against her heart. There’s no one across the basin to answer.

There’s a grace to people. It’s constant, a fluid beauty across dynamic lives; they grow old and drift apart and lose themselves in the world that dwarfs them, but the lines across their palms remain. The light hits their hair still; their voices fall thin and their laughter mute, but they smile in their place. They’re forever changing, unceasingly bright.

The hall is silent as she watches over the firepit. It’s routine. It’s peaceful. It’s warm, and quiet, and it’s lonely. She sits by the fire and shifts the kindling as hours pass, and even as she hums to fill the space around her, the emptiness of the room settles heavy on her shoulders. The people in the flickering tips of the fire dance in the air; she watches from below, willing her skin to set ablaze like theirs, praying the embers will light their grace in her, that the smoke will fill her lungs with life. She stays the same, dull beneath the fire; the hall stays silent.

She tends the flames still.

[adlibitum-writings]

I’ve been bouncing my leg for an hour now. I haven’t listened to a word this man has said. My eyes have been heavy all day, and I’m not sure why, because I slept well and ate well and drank coffee and breathed and I’m still tired, and shaky, and frantic somewhere in my chest. I have so much to do that it’s all blurred together. My hands are useless. I sat in bed before I left and I just wanted to lay back and stare at the ceiling for a while, but the world is quick and demanding, and I made myself stand, and I’m mechanical and creaking but I’m real. I want a break.

[adlibitum-writings]

When you’re seven, you’re watching a show with your mom and siblings. Your older sister is ‘boy crazy’ right now - she makes it a performance to fawn over the handsome love interests on Disney shows, giggling in delight when your mom rolls her eyes and smiles, grinning when she teases your sister about elementary school romances and celebrity crushes. (Your mom tries to get you to join in. She frowns when you fake a gag, and turns back to your sister, laughing at her antics again.) A boy from a popular show appears during a commercial break. Your sister and mom start joking about his eyes, his outfit, and you psych yourself up to join in, commenting quietly that his hair is cute. Your mom immediately brightens, asks you to repeat it, holding in a laugh as she stares at you - but her eyes are on you, and your sister is laughing too loud, and your chest feels tight, your stomach sick. You don’t feel like a part of the conversation; you feel like a spectacle, a performer missing her script, a laughing stock for an audience who knows more about her role than she does. You repeat yourself, cool instead of cute. Your mom wilts and shakes her head. You don’t understand how to rectify; only that you’ve done something wrong.

In seventh grade, your friends make a joke about you liking a boy in your class. They laugh when you wrinkle your nose; there’s nothing repulsive about him, or nothing that you know, but you know you do not want to like him. Your friends bring this ‘crush’ up every time he passes by. You ask them, earnestly, why they’ve chosen him - their reasons are odd, random, nonsensical (“You’re both tall,” one says, and “Well, neither of you talk all that much”), but after a while, you find that you don’t really care. You start to bring it up, too, unprompted, just to hear them laugh about it. There’s a small thrill in the attention. You’re doing something right, you think, finally - they include you in the oh-so-formative experience of a teenage girl, the whispers of crushes and boys, the gossip from movies that you didn’t know was real until now. You play the part to the best of your ability: you giggle when your friend asks him if you’re pretty, act happy when his friend tells you he’s sure the boy likes you, play flustered the way you see others do when someone brings up their crush. You are nervous around him, anxious - you convince yourself it’s butterflies, and try to ignore that you’ve never even had a conversation with him. You let yourself play normal; you try, desperately, to be normal.

In eighth grade, you’re eating lunch with your mom after a school event. You are her mini-me, she tells you often at this age, smart and hardworking, interested in music, reading, learning - you are everything she likes about herself. You sit across from her now, in a fast food restaurant that is empty except for the two of you. You’re in the middle of a bite when she starts, slowly, “So…” You recognize her tone; your face burns before she even finishes, your appetite fading as anxiety builds in your throat. “I saw one of the boys in your class looking at you. He kept looking over at you when you were walking with your friends. He was cute!” You put your sandwich down, staring intently at the indents in the lid of your drink. “Okay,” you respond, your voice flat, uninviting, and take a deliberately long sip of the soda. Your mom looks at you for a moment; you worry that she’ll push it, but she just sighs deeply, looking down at her own food in lieu of conversation. And you know, with a pit in your stomach, that you’ve failed to meet an expectation. You are intelligent, perfectionistic, talented like she sees herself. But you will never quite be enough.

In senior year, your younger sibling comes out as an ace lesbian. (There’s a part of you that is envious of their courage, to call themselves asexual out loud - something you have not done to anyone but your siblings. You do not plan to change this, still.) Your older sister, openly bisexual, cheers as she’s told, by a proud, preening mom, what they’d done; she jokes, in her excitement, that “we’re all gay, I guess!” You are two rooms away and hear your mother scream with laughter. She calls to you as your sister frantically tries to backtrack, “Did she just out you?!” Indignance flares inside you, that she thinks the notion is funny. You shout no immediately, sharply, and they all stop laughing. Your mom pulls back, out of view, and your sister mumbles an apology you just barely hear. You are near tears, something heavy in your chest and something prickly in your throat. You have separated yourself with a line too harsh; you have ruined the fun. But you weren’t having fun in the first place.

In your freshman year of college, you meet new people rapidly. The community you’ve become a part of is overwhelmingly queer; for the first time in your life, you realize you’re not uncomfortable talking about your sexuality, so long as it’s outside of your own home. You feel secure in your identity - you add a flag here and there around your room, seek out others in the community, settle on a label that may not be perfect, but one that is roomy and comfortable and enough. Your mom calls frequently. She asks about your friends - you mention one more than the others, a girl, and she gets quiet when you mention her, and you realize your mistake too late. She thinks she knows you better now, even if she never says it out loud. You want to cry, because there is no way you can correct her. You know she would never forgive you if you told her the truth. You cannot like boys, she’s gathered, and you realize she would rather you like girls than no one at all; you cannot tell her she will be disappointed on all fronts. You can’t tell her that she will never meet your partner over dinner, that she will never take engagement photos, that she will never get a wedding from you. You can’t tell her that you will never be what she wants. So you sit in silence and let her think she understands.

Now, you are tired. You sit in class and notice the pretty girl beside you, and you find yourself sneaking glances at her, instinctively playing your part; you join in when your friends call others hot, commiserating and engaging in a way you hope is normal, acceptable; you laugh when they ask you questions about who you like, what you like, and you know there’s no reason to be nervous at the inquiry, no reason to lie, but you are anxious that you’ve gotten it wrong. You’re nervous you have done something wrong. Something inside of you is paranoid that they know you better than you know yourself, that they are waiting for you to realize what you’ve just obviously repressed. You are confused, frustrated, exhausted with yourself. You imagine a hand in yours at night and recoil at the idea come morning; you feel disgust sometimes, hope at others, and they are both better than the indifference you feel in between, because something is better than nothing, because something is normal, at least. You hesitate to label it at all, worried that there is something wrong with you that has made you this way, something that will inevitably be fixed and leave you entirely new, unrecognizable. And it is exhausting.

Now, you are tired.

But you are hopeful.

One day, you will be at peace. One day, you might understand. One day, you will be okay.

You will keep trying.

[adlibitum-writings]

I just came back from outside after sitting in the rain and I saw the footprint of water on the floor and I am overwhelmed with some kind of love for existing

[adlibitum-writings]

sometimes i feel there is something sharp and tangled inside of me. a piano string in a knot, maybe, slick with blood from stinging fingertips, skin tired and red and torn. but there is something beautiful waiting in an untangled string. i will keep trying.

[adlibitum-writings]

you stand outside with goosebumps and a chill beneath your skin

but the breeze is not unkind,

only persistent.

you breathe stillness

into the ghost of a shiver

and take note

that not every discomfort of being human

is a burden.

[adlibitum-writings]

In a far more lighthearted train of thought than last week, I’ve recently noticed an incredible increase in the numbers of students just… walking! Kind of a banal observation, but after spending a month at home (which, for many of us, was a generally unpleasant ordeal) and coming back to campus in the middle of a pretty dreary and biting season (not to mention the whole pandemic thing, of course), seeing people and the sun out and about again is like a rush of serotonin in itself. I’m more of storm person myself - I’ve been very happy with the recent weather - but I’ll admit, sunshine has been a welcome gift as of late. This is the first time since I can remember that I’ve really understood the craze around spring fever. I think we’ve all needed something bright, and spring feels a bit like a fresh start. (A start for what, I’m not sure, but I suppose that means it’s up to you!)

Though it is getting warmer here, we’re at the lovely point of the season where the nights are a soft kind of chilly - breezes that give you goosebumps, without the pain of actually being cold - and there’s something like relief in standing in the wind despite a chill. There’s a poem by Franz Wright, “Night Walk,” where the narrator goes to a convenience store late at night, leaving money for cigarettes at the empty counter before they walk back outside and walk past all the lit-up windows; there’s a line in the poem that goes “It is freezing, but it’s a good thing / to step outside again.” It’s a sentiment that rings a bit more true lately (given quarantine and all), but even then, after the garbage fire that has been this past year, it’s a relief to just step outside and feel something so mundane as a chill. Stand outside, close your eyes, and let the breeze give you goosebumps - it’s a small reminder that not all the discomfort of being human is a burden.

There’s another line in that poem - it’s one of my favorites, if you couldn’t tell - right at the end, when the narrator is looking around at the lit-up windows and says, “Walking home for a moment / you almost believe you could start again. / And an intense love rushes to your heart, / and hope. It's unendurable, unendurable.” It puts into words a very endearing aspect of people, I think: the way we are so easily able to adore simple things. Light coming through a window, for one (and it does feel so warm, the proof that there are people living their lives and returning home at the end of the day to something golden), but so much more - there was a girl in the courtyard the other night who stopped halfway up the stairs to stare at the sky. She stayed like that for a good few minutes, just looking up at the stars, until she just smiled and kept moving. Another person, when it was raining a few days ago, walked out of their dorm building and stood in front of the doors, closed their eyes and tilted their head up against the rain, then walked right back inside afterwards. There was a group of people under the tent a couple nights ago, sitting in a loose circle and having a pretty serious conversation about cookies, and as silly as that might sound, it shows so perfectly how much passion and energy people have for miscellany! We will stop and stare at stars and stand in the rain and discuss random desserts, devoting our time and mind to admiring the details of our lives, just for the sake of it. How wonderful is that?

I read once that life is so much easier when you start romanticizing the little things - making coffee in the morning, your commute from home to school or work, the passing smell of bonfires when you’re out walking, laughing at stupid puns and telling them to your friends to make them roll their eyes. A late night chill and the goosebumps it leaves behind, and the golden light in windows. Stars and rain and cookies. Finding affection and awe in the tiny details of the world is a brilliant effort, I think. How brilliant we are for trying!

With that said, I think I’ll leave this ramble here. This is certainly a much shorter letter than last week (and much more disorganized, I’ll admit), but I hope you all can find something small to adore in the coming days. Keep those lights shining strong, folks.

- Ophidia