When you and I were at the cemetery last time, I felt it so piercingly and clearly: you know it all, you know what will happen after death—you know it absolutely simply and calmly—as a bird knows that, fluttering from a branch, it will fly and not fall down. And that’s why I am so happy with you, my lovely, my little one. And here’s more: you and I are so special; the miracles we know, no one knows, and no one loves the way we love.
Memory is hazy like Charleston’s lights fading against my closed eyelids. I see winding garland, soft, ruby felt bows and houses gleaming dimly on Queen street. This is what composes my holiday recollections along with charcuterie boards rife with prosciutto and goat cheese, oversized sweatshirts rustling against one another as we sprawl beneath blankets on the couch and turn down the tableside lamps. There is a persistent fullness that travels from the stomach to the heart until it swallows our mutual person in one giant gulp. We are as warm and comfortable as bears in a den surveying an otherwise hostile landscape. We do not venture out and nary a soul ventures in.
The world feels far away here and my vague inclination to shudder at the season recedes. My toes only tingle when they remember unpleasant scenes, a cacophony of harsh sound that never ends despite one’s fervent wishes and attempt to outlast the noise with musical tunes. That sense that I have been both ostracized and outed as a pauper to an unsympathetic public has faded as has the feeling that there is no tree for me to look under, no pair of arms to receive me into the good graces of family. These wisps of conscience are whispers too quiet to be deciphered, too fleeting to be felt as anything but an unpleasant aftertaste to a dish that poisoned me once before the jaws of life saved me.
I feel only the glow of our successes now, the rosy health one obtains after surviving a deadly sickness. You have shepherded me to this place and I know I can live my severed life as long as one side leaves me here with you in our harmonious matrimony.
I feel important and as glistening as the friendly facades of Georgian houses decorated with low, twinkling lights that brighten as twilight approaches on the first hours of our vacation. You accompany me as I inspect all the boutiques, and collect purchases on my merry journey. I’m unfettered in my search for beauty, utterly at ease in ways I once only imagined as I surveyed happy shoppers from behind a glass barrier in previous seasons.
My body bleeds gratitude. I behold you with wonderment as I sweep across the streets and greedily take in the hum of activity coupled with the austere historic atmosphere. At brunch, I marvel that my feet brush the stones lining the inner garden where we sit and eat a crab cake benedict and chicken with biscuits respectively. I am happy and I wonder how many times since meeting you I have been able to wholeheartedly squeeze such a sentiment to its last generous drop. I am always happy but that happiness unhurriedly shifts from jubilant glee to composed, peaceful contentment. When people ask me how I am so calm I would like to reply that I am simply pleased. I am pleased as a cat lounging in a sunny window, gratified as one who has already received everything they could ever possibly want and has no further aspirations.
You are my patient companion as we tour plantation houses wrapped in dark history and elbow our way through the crowded market. The upcoming week sprawls out before us with enticing beauty that betokens promise. We speak of this as we indulge in the best fried chicken sandwich I have ever eaten and retreat to an unmarked bar where fairy lights twinkle and the drinks are agreeably strong. I look at your profile, a match struck against the darkness, and smile. You are my ever present reality and I cannot miss a moment of your rapture. I take it in with the same persistent contentment as words fail me. All I can say is that I love you, which I am always saying because it is truly one of the chief thoughts that occupy me at any point in time, at any particular place.
Ivied gardens struggle to supplant you. You expertly navigate us from one acre to the next as we survey farm animals, lakes, flowers and ancient oaks alike on a massive, forgiving landscape. The temperature is optimal and the sun ever present as the greenery blends together and lulls me to sleep. I am full of cookies and biscuits while we duck past hawks and spy herons in the distance who peek out of swampy reeds. Cheerful camellia blossoms decorate the aisles and put their best face forward towards the baby blue sky littered with clouds that look like pieces of cotton scattered to the four winds.
Before a sumptuous feast of steak, shrimp toast, goat cheese gnocchi and decadent chocolate cake with espresso ice cream, we go out to the point and survey this vast marshland with wonder. This seductively lazy wetland with its algae and flowers, its humidity dulled by December and its serene majesty appeals to all the senses. I am indulged by the sights and tastes. I am the birthday girl, (though of course it's your birthday,) giggly on bubbly, all smiles and bursting to the seams yet able to navigate the lightshow wonderland. My feet find strength as you pull off abruptly into a gravel parking lot once you spot the light up carousel horse that I cannot help but croon over. You endeavor to show me the backlit splendor as we wind our way through this curious paradise composed of shadows and light. I grip your hand all the harder because I know you endeavored to show me the hippity hoppity Pansy and the flitting butterfly for my viewing pleasure. I feel like the little girl in the nutcracker, waltzing down mysterious pathways, guarded by my fairy prince. I am happy to indulge you that night with the s’mores cake I surprised you with. I enjoy the retreat into our temporary home as I do the thrill of navigating this lush world.
The days stroll by and are full of ornate mansion tours with robin egg and bubblegum pink walls, crown molding, wainscoting and a spiral staircase that rises higher than my eyes ever could. We walk until our feet are numb, but my breath comes out in excited shocks as we encounter oysters, crab dip, crumble cookies and a shrimp toast that defies logic with how divine it is. Cheerful wreaths commemorate the season, and the houses adorning Rainbow Row are a welcome sight on a gray day. Beauty abounds in all directions, and I feel a solid sense of peace. I am keenly aware of my joy, it infuses my being with a staunch belonging as we saunter through parks full of geese and swans, our hands full of bags for myself and Sadie alike, as we pause on piers to enjoy the lakeside scenery which generously abounds. I can taste the flaky crust of a homemade pop tart on my tongue along with sourdough bread and cheesy grits. That night, when I drink instead of eat pulled pork after a Barbecue feast, I will laugh because it is decadently fitting and my blood is indeed now far too rich.
The church of John the Baptist raises my hand to light two single candles beneath a starry ceiling my mother would have loved. I stare at the stained glass figures and marvel that anyone could ever aspire to worship a ghostly idea, a besmirched book, in favor of someone altogether real. Perhaps most do not meet a mortal that challenges their notion of what heaven is. I do not believe in any eternal life. I shudder instead at the fluke that is luck, the luck of discovering a singular source of communion, an ever-giving love. I used to shrink in fear at the notion of ever losing this Eden because surely all things stitched together in flesh and blood must fall. Now, I cower slightly, give thanks, more adamantly, and put my entire worth into protecting, extending and gratifying this union on earth which constitutes life itself.
I skip out to the street, down past the light up tree and the children singing by the square. I hold you closely, as one can only try to hold onto what is most precious, most desired and loved. We take refuge in a dessert bar and enjoy tiramisu and death by chocolate boozy milkshakes before relaxing in a small brewery. On our enclosed porch, we calmly observe the weather, and I think of the poem I wrote concerning how much has changed yet the rain still gently falls. That poem is dated seven or so years past and if I were to rewrite it, the shifts in character and tone would floor me. Our whole life has been remade and it is pieced together by these pleasant musings, these lovely rewrites and rescreenings. Perhaps that is why history fascinates me. Charleston’s, and ours. The aquarium finds me your baby just as I’ve always been, hand fastened tight to your arm as I pet stingrays, and wait for you to show us the way on the maps I cannot read. Neon orbs bob complacently in the water, and all the pools emits tranquil light. I am warm now though I was never cold. Not even as we waited on the backside of buildings, catching a break and cheating the wind as I rested my feet and you stood on balconies and cooed playfully down to me.
I take in the glitter and glitz, as we read and observe and pick up a stuffed friend named Carl on our way out of this place, South of Carolina. We lull first on rose gold cushions, and partake in violet creme cocktail glasses in the honey hive prefaced by hot oil dumplings, wok fried noodles and addictive korean fried chicken in a cool, neon blue space where we reminisce about all the asian feasts we have sampled, all the wonderful food we have found. I used to live on a heartache diet and the only reprieve was a single bag of Grandma Utz potato chips downed far too quickly for my liking. Now, delicacies abound. I buy myself a charcuterie board and taste wagyu roast beef with the creamiest, bleu cheese imaginable. There’s cheddar biscuits, and candy floss pulled pork that is dreamy as strangers prod and poke me, asking if I matched my coat to my shoes purposely, and smile at me in a way that makes me forget when I lived in ripped jeans and dirty hoodies. Those are the days where I starved in infamy, had no company, and yearned for a jeweled door to open onto fairer shores.
I think those gilded doors would open here to these ballet pink mansions with green shutters and graceful porches. To Georgian brick estates with white pillars, concrete gardens, and terraces that stretch out into the sea. I am contemplative as I think of the slave mart where lesser souls were bought and sold to live in the back of these palaces in huts as they imagined a better existence for themselves. I wonder how it is that some survive and overcome while others are ground down into a fine dust.
I survived to see this day and I spend it in cemeteries that you explore for my benefit. I overcame adversity for you even when I supposed you may not be real. Perhaps I am merely a product of your dreams because I never had one quite so prosperous nor sweet. Nothing so beautiful as icy white chandeliers and marble floors, tangy rich pralines and the crystalline beauty of breath frozen in trailing puffs of smoke as we drift past the holiday pop up. There’s nothing like noise to shatter the snowglobe, thuds and bumps coupled with duck confit sandwiches, duck fat fries with a bulb of garlic and hush puppy delights that taste like a home I never knew.
My eyes are fixated on the beautiful lavender sunset, and your jacket flapping in the wind. I knit my fingers wondering how I am so blessed and why. What have I done that others have not? Why does one prosper as another suffers? I try to be gracious and kind, to deserve this present that I delicately unwrap one shimmering fold at a time. I love you so dearly, just as I do the memories we continue to carve out within the confines of this vast world. I like when our world seems endless just as I do when it is small. I cry over the fattiest, most succulent beef rib just as I do when I contemplate how ardently your person represents the highest spires on the tallest church known to man. These are my memories. I know no others. This is who I am. The photo albums are shelved to remind me that our past is the only one that bears any weight. It has occurred, and it awaits new pages to be added because they are taken from the very fabric of our growing life.
riding buses rules bc when ur on a bus all you can do is sit & stare, & thats all i ever do anyway, & theres none of that “i should be doing something” executive dysfunction anxiety bc ur trapped on a bus. u cannot do the thing
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
titsay
snowghoul
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
pixelskylines
gummygunk
