I want to write something that will accurately summarize the last few weeks, but I’m not sure how to do it. I am a person who is cursed with having many of my closest friends live thousands of miles away, some on opposite coasts, some in different countries, and so I am used to the bullet-point summary catch-ups: “This person did this thing two weeks ago and I remember feeling big feelings about it then, but now it’s just fodder” is a formula I’ve mastered orally speaking (pun intended).
In writing it all feels harder. I feel more pressure to be articulate when faced with the format of the written word and I’m a little too tired and too rain-soaked to be articulate at all, so today let’s pretend you’re Ruby. Or Gaby. Or Abi. Or Gaia. Or Alice.
Today let’s all pretend you’re one of my long-distance loves and we’re on a FaceTime as I walk around a neighborhood more walkable than my own. Here’s the last few weeks.
This is what I’ve done with the time I’ve already spent: Payson had a birthday and so we filled up a space built for less than half of us. I got there early (as always); planted myself in a doorway and attempted to entertain the chefs and sous chefs as I de-leafed mint and dill. If I cannot be useful, I can at least be memorable. Shiny and witty and full of just enough for small doses. Cheered them all on as they sang for strangers and imagined what it would feel like to be a person brave enough to sing someone else’s song to people I don’t know enough to want something from.
Schlepped to the west side to sit with maddy over leftovers and a gifted thong as we ignored the fact that soon she will be among the people I love best a whole ocean away. I didn’t hug her for as long as I wanted to but I’m not sure I ever will. No time will ever be enough.
Therapy on the phone, pacing and talking and crying and feeling and trying to feel and trying not to keep track of how much longer we have before I can hang up and stop being good at analyzing my feelings and mistakes and feelings about my mistakes. Pre-gamed therapy with a morning call to Roo, eight hours ahead of me and on her way to her own therapy session. We laughed and groaned and missed each other all while sharing mistakes we conveniently forget to mention to our respective therapists.
Coffee by the river with cowboy killers on memory lane. Hung up the dog’s training camp degree. I don’t know where my diploma is. Hers is on the wall. She’s earned it.
Breakfast of secrets, art, and fuel with someone who saved my life before I ever met her. Now she buys me coffee and we build each other into our art. Downtown LA weak coffee with a good view.
Phoned a friend at the lake. DTLA is a good place for nosiness; there’s so much to see, so much to spy on. I wonder what strangers saw of me.
Waiting for the rain people said would be catastrophic. Hope that when it comes, I will let myself feel all the things I’ve been saving up.
Blue sky Saturday on a couch with Karly. I make the coffee, she makes the eggs. Sally just sits. She’s not old enough for a task.
Fill the night with music I haven’t listened to in lifetimes and laughter that rips itself from my chest. Sleep pressed close to the dog. Two heaters in one bed. I climb out before the sun rises, sweating and wanting more of everything.
The sky opens up and I think of Hen. Awards are doled out and I think of him some more. I cry in the car for reasons I don’t want to understand and so I don’t.
More therapy, more rain, more fallen trees and hydroplaning. Our house is full again.
I have four pages left in my yellow notebook and I don’t know if I feel antsy to finish the job or regretful that I wasted so many pages on words that aren’t worth sharing. Both, maybe.
Fought on the phone and then with a punching bag. The rain is still falling as I write this. That is as pretend articulate as I can be.
Sooooo, anyway…. that’s how I’ve been…. How are you?
xx,
Ava
What Rya said 👇🏻
From Abi
Fuck you can write
Thank you
X