Longing

I can’t stop listening to Blue Mesas by Leon Bridges. The song is contemplative and poetic just as the rest of his music is. The melody is timeless, just as the rest of his music is. It’s not that I’ve just discovered this album- I’ve listened to The Gold-Diggers Sound album over and over while two of Bridges’ other songs became the sounds of my postpartum days. I sang Coming Home to Moonie when she was born and River to Little when he was born- I still do. But for whatever reason, hearing it recently made it sound like an entirely different song. It begins the way a devastating scene in a film fades- the cellos framing the longing. This is how I see the song in my head when I close my eyes. It’s like staring at red rocks and watching the moon rise and set on a time lapse. Maybe that’s why it’s hitting different. Maybe it’s because the type of longing I’m on these days doesn’t come from wishing things were better. Not this time, for the first time. Rather it comes from the ability to be still long enough to take it all in. Blue Mesas is the final track on The Gold-Diggers Sound and I can’t stop thinking about that- the leaving you with the longing.

---

I can’t stop thinking about a photo I recently took of the kids sitting on our bed. They had made a Nest for me after I told them I was having a particularly painful menstrual cycle and needed a beat and to take a bath. Moonie is wearing one of my old, oversized t-shirts and her smile is exactly mine when I was her age. Each time I catch a glimpse of that photo while scrolling through the 73,514 items¹ stored on my phone I see my thighs which aren’t actually mine, they’re Moonie’s. The same way I see my mother when I’m ass up in the garden wearing thin cotton shorts and catch my reflection in the glass door. The same way I feel her when I’m putting a few stems of flowers into a thrifted vase.

My kids are all the best parts of me, just like I know I am all the best parts of my mother. I know I heal her when I’m digging around in the dirt. Or when I wear all the clothes my fat body shouldn’t wear but does, and loves to, anyway. I know I heal us both whenever I get to experience the things she always wanted but will never get the chance to.

I can’t stop thinking about her. I know I never will.

---

I can’t stop thinking about the way Anaya sounded over the phone Saturday night. He called me as he was driving back to his friend’s house after he had dropped off his brother Rei at the long-term care facility where he lives. I could hear the need for sleep in his voice at the same time it was being saturated with a deep longing; for things to be the way they were and also completely different than the way they were before The Accident. Some people say that longing is the absence of being present but what if longing is exactly the rubber band required to snap you into your body? I don’t have an answer for that for what it’s worth but that won’t stop me from thinking about it. Before we hung up I told him that I loved him- the most. I wished him a safe rest of his drive and told him I would talk to him before he went to sleep. I fucked around with a hanging light (lantern? it’s not that either) and went back to our bedroom just as Moonie was calling me from her iPad. She told me that I had to make Dubai chocolate strawberries for her, something I had to look up on the internet because whut, and I told her I would as soon as they were home. My entire self longs and aches for those kids when they’re gone. I told her as much, just like I always do. We counted down the days until she would be back home to us, just like we always do. After we hung up I started to send Anaya a text about the elusive Dubai chocolate strawberries before I realized I had missed four calls from him- finally seeing the text. Rei had a seizure shortly after Anaya dropped him off. And then another one. And then a third, convulsing yet paralyzing, thirty minute seizure that prompted staff to call an ambulance. Anaya was back in the car driving to the hospital and the longing hadn’t left his voice but instead hung full with the moon.

I can’t stop thinking about the way longing comes full circle.

---

Our first wedding anniversary is on Sunday, March 23rd. This exact time last year we were standing in the dressing room of a nondescript *bridal* store looking for a white wedding dress to sub in for the black gown I was intending to wear but that the seamstress had…

It didn’t work and I’ll leave it at that. Anaya was lacing and unlacing. Pulling dresses on and then off over the top of my head. I was sweating- literally because I don’t know a life of trying on clothes without looking like I had just spent the last hour doing hurdles, but also sweating because what if I didn’t find anything? We laughed a lot. We took breaks to drink the champagne we had bought before considering what we might pour it into and reluctantly decided it was distasteful to take pulls straight from the bottle- alas, we discovered one of the kids’ water bottles in the back seat. We made out in the dressing room when we decided this is the one and after I had gotten over the fact that he would see me in my wedding dress before the ceremony after all- something I had been avoiding.

I can’t stop thinking about all of the beginnings and ends that transpired the last 365 days and I can’t stop thinking about this sentence written by

𝕔𝕒𝕣𝕧𝕖𝕝𝕝

in his memoir, Another Word for Love.

“Maybe I will be forever longing, because longing is forever.”

Biggest love,

AR

Currently Reading: a whole lot of seed packets and information about seeds not found on packets or for seeds without packets. About propagating a cutting from a family’s (heirloom) rose bush to give to the grandson. About how to install a ceiling hook without a drill- I ended up using the drill. I’m listening to A Ghost in The Throat again? Still?

Currently Listening To: no need for redundancy

Currently Cooking (eating): I am home alone for the weekend- Anaya extended his trip, naturally, and the kids won’t return from their bio-dad’s until later this week. I’m messing around with my carrot cake recipe (coming soon) and trying out a parsnip variation at the request of a friend. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not really cooking- mixing bowls of bagged salads and cinnamon Life will do me just fine, thank you very much.

1. I can purge the hell out of tangible things but I haven’t yet learned the art of deleting photos and videos. Combined with the folders and folders of sex work content. I should do something with the elusive Cloud and today is not that day.