A Discovery of Scars

Moonie curled around my body, high-centering half of hers on top of mine while the other half crammed in between the already barely-there crevice between me and the back of the couch. To be the little spoon to your kid is weirdly comforting- a lesson in acceptance and stillness. To be the held instead of the holder. My first born, the epitome of a Leo, a fire sign, and a triple one at that. She is fiercely independent, undeniably tenderhearted and I catch that familiar swallow of tears that stirs in my throat, startled by her tenderness. She strokes my hair the same way Anaya does when I rest my head in his lap while we watch god-knows what trash, connects the dots of freckles along my shoulder and eventually settles her hand on top of my thigh for a moment before her own stillness begins to rattle her. That’s when she discovers a smattering of scars where my thigh meets the crease of my hip. What happened, Momma? Just yesterday she asked me what it meant to want to kill yourself after listening to a woman share her story while we stood in a sea of queer and trans bodies at a protest. When some people feel so unsupported or have been convinced they are unlovable, it becomes easy to think it is better to not be alive anymore. I can’t tell her that I empathize with this woman because I’ve been her. I can’t explain to her how I have also wanted to die. How I have also wanted to kill myself. How I have danced with the possibilities of everlasting quiet. How do you tell your eight year old that there have been times I have not wanted to live anymore and other times I simply wanted to feel the comfort of pain that was self-inflicted instead of the kind done to me- placed upon me? I don’t know what or how much or whether or not I will share with her, both of our kids, the extent of pain that my body has endured at the hands of other people. I’m not sure I know where to begin explaining that so many of the scars she’s stretched and traced and examined during her eight years were done by the same hands that cradle her face and wash her hair. I’ve made amends with my younger, more impressionable, lonelier self but it’s her, the second me, the parts of me, the best and worst and most beautiful parts, and even the parts that don’t belong to me that leave me nauseous and feeling small. How do you tell your kid that you bandage hers but created your own? I’m not ready for that type of judgment day. The scars she found and then examined were there, out in the open as they often are when I’m at home with my family, wearing clothes out of absolute necessity- the neighbors, the leather couch that guests sit on, the cooking of bacon. So I’m in boxer briefs which have inevitably snaked and cinched their way up my generous thighs and shimmied above a cluster of scars that resemble lines on a notebook, stacked precisely one on top of the other. It happened a long time ago, I say. I’ll tell you about it someday.

I should’ve said I might but I didn’t.

I take in the room around me. The sun still on the other side of the house, leaving the living room cavernous in the early morning. The way her chest presses against my back. The same chest I stared at for hours when she was an infant- a sign she was here. She was breathing. It smells of incense and coffee and the milkiness of kid-breath. I’ve already spritzed the humid-loving plants with their morning water. If I close my eyes tight enough, I can occasionally convince myself that the lives before her never existed. Those scars are a tool for reckoning and I come-to as Moonie twists her wrist and dances her fingers through the incense smoke that has caught in the slats of sunlight. Yes, I think, just like that.

---

I’ve been writing something that I don’t quite see the shape of, I don’t know what it will be. For the first time I haven’t coaxed words into a box and/or label and I wrangle all of my executive function spoons to simply keep track of, to watch, to bear witness to an unfolding of its own kind. I wanted to share a little with you this morning.

I’m holding you and whatever grief(s) you carry alongside you.

---

I will be co-hosting a workshop, Mourning Ritual, for processing grief through food and writing with Priscilla Callos on November 9th at 12 pm MST.

This is not a craft workshop- please come if you don’t consider yourself a writer. It is for those that hold grief which is to say it is for every one.

If the cost is a barrier, no it isn’t. If you would like to attend and worry you cannot due to finances re: capitalism, there will always be a seat for you. If you can’t attend but would like to donate or gift a ticket, please reach out at truckeyava at gmail .com or feel free to send me a message here.

Biggest love,

AR