Grieving in a Pool, Keeping a Journal, and Finding Yourself a Word at a Time.
Finders keepers.
Reading through my writing from the past couple of years, the stuff that never got refined in any way feels like watching a horror movie or a Pixar movie, with no in-between.
On the one hand, you have this, from when I pulled a muscle in my back and then reminisced on the time I was given hydrocodone cough syrup at 16 for the flu from our regional hospital…
" So instead, I sit in bed, rest my back, and watch the new Gwyneth Paltrow show on sex. I try my best to not stare at my phone, and I just generally wait until the time passes, and it's time to go to sleep again -- which should be coming up soon.
After I finish my words, I'll fish Tucker out of the living room and see if I can get him to rub one of the body parts that hurts.Â
Shoulder, lower back, face.Â
Maybe he'll alternate, one right after the other right after the other, and maybe for a second, it will feel like the hydrocodone cough syrup and the chicken nuggets."
On the other hand, you have this…
"When you are a 12-year-old fat girl who lives in the middle of nowhere in an already small North Carolina town, there's not much to keep you busy. I did my fair share of walking around the woods and shooting my BB gun at cans on the dirt mounds behind my house. I also paid lip service to my grandma, talking about family gossip, biscuits, and The Holy Bible. Eventually, though, I ran out of things to do. And that's how I found reading."
Actually, that last one did get refined into this newsletter eventually:
All of this makes me see the different people I’ve been so clearly. By writing about myself and my experience, I understand myself better.
Joan Didion had lots of beautiful things to say, but my favorite was this:
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.
…
It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.
At my core, this is why I write. Life sometimes moves too quickly, and I want to remember it all, even the grief. This year has been full of more sorrow than I've ever seen. I started the year off losing a friend, and I've ended the year with losing a dear family member. During another year of the pandemic, during another year of societal turmoil. Renovating an old house, full of surprises around every turn. The wells of grief have been so profound. The year has been so hard.
And yet, this has also been one of the happier years of my life. Friendship extended in my direction like no other, a home packed to the brim with laughter and food, some of which I grew myself. Life this year has felt full and splendid when the air wasn't sucked out of the room.
I'm writing now because I want to carry this with me throughout my life: It can be both. When it hurts more than you ever thought it could, you'll probably laugh again. Someone might show up at your house with soup or text you to tell you it's normal to feel like you're sitting at the bottom of a pool.
Speaking of pools, I'll end here.
The day after I found out my grandfather-in-law passed away, I had cried on and off for 24 hours, mostly on. I found out about his passing while in Austin and was waiting to catch my flight the following morning. I didn't want to be alone, but I didn't want to do anything. I had plans with a friend and didn't want to blow them off because this friend was more like a sister than anything else. She is the most beautiful person and has the most nurturing energy. She's the person you text when you aren't sure what to substitute in a recipe, or when you aren't sure of what to do next, or when you just want someone to sit with. Last year, I walked alongside this friend through the grief of losing her mother. She would have been my first text that day if we didn't already have plans to see each other. So I didn't cancel; I rearranged. I needed her ease and her warmth. I just needed her. She came over to the beautiful home I was staying in, and we cried in a pool. We laughed, too, about how crazy grief makes you feel and how you can be so sad in a pool. A pool is such a bizarre place to grieve. We spent maybe an hour and a half together, and I walked out of it feeling like I'd find myself again — like grief is sometimes just a way to new parts of yourself.
Speaking of Joan, the auction of her estate is live and there are so many things that I want. The pillows from her home, this lot of her sunglasses, and this lot which contains a piece of marble from her desk.
I’m working on my Christmas list already and I’m thinking this is the year I either shop small, shop vintage, or make all of my gifts. Have you done this? Let me know how it went.
I have an ask: do you have a cookbook you love? Message me about it!
That’s all for today :) Thank you for supporting me by subscribing to this newsletter and sharing it with your friends. It means the world to me that you’d continue to invite me into your internet living room.Â
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