jessishereagain

[jessishereagain]

Tonight, while putting the dishes away before bed, I had a little thought I don’t want to lose. I’ve been reading and watching so much set in the Victorian era, or the pioneering days — all those endless, ordinary hardships that filled up their lives. Carrying water from the well, boiling it, dragging in a bath, scrubbing clothes by hand. And I thought about how soft my life is in comparison. Today I left a load of laundry in the machine too long and only felt mildly inconvenienced, because I knew I could just rewash it tomorrow and nothing would really fall apart.

But then I wondered — the Victorian woman was modern too, to the woman before her. She probably looked back at her grandmother’s life and felt something similar: relief at her own conveniences, guilt at still finding her life hard, amazement at what her ancestors endured.

And then it struck me that someday there will be a future woman thinking of me with the same lens — feeling a little sorry for me, marveling at how primitive my conveniences must look from where she stands.

I don’t know what to make of it, but it makes me feel both small and connected, threaded into this long chain of women doing their best with what they’ve been given.

[jessishereagain]

Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead- favourite passages.

#litfic #literaryfiction #bookpassages #prose

[jessishereagain]

A man at the airport on the phone-

“Hey, yeah.

I am getting hotterrrr

Almost there !!!

Love you Grace.”

[jessishereagain]

It is not so original a thought of a love like ours.

After all- all mothers have hands

and

all daughters alike,

we look the same from the alien eye

but try- come inspect our palms.

How the lines interweave a story so impossible,

how perfectly your little hand fits in mine,

how smooth your nail beneath my thumb-only

God could have written this map and only to him it will lead.

[jessishereagain]

My little gem

My little Gemini

Your love is the warmth of a hot mug

So soothing, I want to wrap all ten of my fingers around it.

however CAREFUL it’s hot!

I could easily burn from this love

vexed with the anxiety of my own fear of not being your best.

But I will try my best for you dear.

I’ll hold you tightly despite the scorch.

I’ll drink in your smile and delight in your laugh.

[jessishereagain]

Life is so beautiful and my eyes know it for they betray me with stings of salt and water.

[jessishereagain]

You say that I am special.

But really I’m not that special.

But because you said that and you don’t really lie,

OR if you do I can tell because you do that thing where you look at the ground and you start to laugh awkwardly and anyway you didn’t do this so I thought.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

And it kind buried in my soul a little bit

-like when my nana carefully plants her cucumber seeds

fully knowing what will come up in a few weeks.

[jessishereagain]

She is my dearest.

Torn from the same cloth.

Linked from the same chain.

We journey together like a river, forking off in different directions

Now and then a crossed connection

Flowing and eroding the ridges of our lives

A steady stream that bleeds through canyons

“Hey I hope you are well! I miss you!”

Bends around banks. A confluence underway.

“I can’t wait to hug you again!”

Until we merge into the estuary that is her kitchen table.

“Girl, do you remember that one time a bird flew in my car!?”

[jessishereagain]

The beauty you see in me

has healed me most completely.

You, who are everything good and kind.

Not looking with blind eyes,

but seeing past the curtain of my facade.

Past the underbite,

cellulite,

“suck it in” as you might,

and what other trites my foggy brain invites.

⸻

“I just think you’re a really special person,” you say.

And it gives way to the burning in my eyes.

Your eyes,

your eyes —

so sincere with love.

It makes me frown.

How is it I get everything I ever wanted?

#poetry #lovepoem

[jessishereagain]

You can but it is a thing known for being hard.

Oh.

But, you are rather known for doing hard things.

Well I’m not sure.

Who has told you other wise?

There was this one time I…

I don’t believe it.

You can and you will and you shall and you must.

[jessishereagain]

I cry because you didn’t try and after a while neither did I.

[jessishereagain]

Yesterday, my mom died. It feels futile to write it down, like who are you writing this for? Well for me and the soft part of me that still calls out for her I suppose. We hadn’t spoken in over 5 years. Partly because of my disassociation with her mental illness that I felt had robbed all of who she really was long ago and partly because of the physical distance that separated us. Also her lack of having a working telephone.

really I don’t think I should be writing this. I think I should just be typing a nice message about her on Facebook, something like “she was deeply loved by all and will be truly missed. Rest in peace.” But to process her death in this way would be to go about my day like every other.

my mom died yesterday. When I found out I couldn’t cry. My hand started to shake but I just nodded on the receiver like an idiot. I had already known. Wait. How is she dead?

Wait- isn’t she already dead? The guilt of this thought gripped the back of my throat and twisted it into a knot. Yeah that’s right. You’ve been away so long in mind and body, that to you this news is just a confirming. so heres the truth of it. Well my truth. Not my sisters or brothers or grandmothers. the truth of it is that my mom was many things.

She was the kindness of a child who is innocent and sweet and has not a bad word to say about others.

She was funny, the kind of funny where they don’t realise how they make others laugh. So absurd that you want to whip your phone out and record them so you can the humour with YouTube. Even go viral. That kind of funny.

She was unworldly and ascetic, maybe to the point of her undoing. She didn’t care about the material things in life, adopting a hermit like lifestyle.

I will not lie and say she was the best mother but she did love in her own way. And a small part of me remembers that love. The way she rubbed my sisters back to get her to sleep or would not let anyone other than her chastise my little brother. Saying he was her “baby sugar”.

A soft part of my remembers what it was like to cry out for her. To long for her. To shift my thoughts and worries and needs on the vessel that is mother. where are you mom?

where have you been?

I cry now.