warmishing

[warmishing]

oh, i am finally old enough to know why my parents took so long to grab their coats. why they would ask us to get ready to go only to sit down for another round of coffee. what would i tell myself, at 10 years old? it’s okay. sit down with them too. take in the extra hour with your friend and her family. when you get home, write down every moment in your diary. one day you will be older and you will be waving goodbye to your best friend, and you will turn the key to start your beat up little car engine, and you will look back over your shoulder. her hair will be blowing in the wind and she will be beautiful and you will be, for a moment, struck by all of it. what you will feel is so wide and nameless that it will engulf you. and you will think of being 14 and kicking her under the table in math every time you wanted to whisper something behind the teacher’s back. you will think about how long the days felt, and how you could hold her hand whenever you wished, but you didn’t. and you will think about all of the people you could have lingered with. and you will wish, more than you have ever felt a wish, that the universe just gave you that - more time to linger. more time to say - i love you. i know i need to leave, but i don’t want to leave you. and when i go, i am leaving a piece of my heart that lingers too. 

one more round of coffee. the days are so short, and you are so lovely.

[warmishing]

this May is about release. this may is about new doors opening. i thought for a long time i had run out of things to be interested in. that the world was a dull socket i kept sticking forks in. but this May is about the tiny things. i am back to wondering how to keep my hands steady. i am back to dancing. i am back to the slow nod of the evening. you know, i haven't tried skydiving. you know, there's a new place down the street i hear sells really good ice cream. you know, the trees outside my window all look different lately, and that's something.

this May is about listening. the soft gentle return of the sun. the crowning heads of flowers. a newborn, tender future - awake at last, and faintly glistening.

[warmishing]

what do you mean i'm not important? or that you're not important? the other day i stood and watched a tree all full of flowers shivering in the morning wind. i was the only one around. who else would have watched it dance? who else but you will notice the way the sun is slanting through your windows? how the rain scoops over your roof? the most important thing is to just exist, you see. by observing the world, we celebrate alongside it.

[warmishing]

“So, if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me because I, too, am fluent in silence.”

— R. Arnold

[warmishing]

— José Olivarez, from "Getting Ready to Say I Love You to My Dad, It Rains," Citizen Illegal