Stitching Letters

Semi-active writing blog.

[cheerytype]

All Black, Pop of Color

How do you mourn a bright person? Someone so deep, quiet, and reserved who would wear blue, purple, green?

It doesn't feel right to mourn in black.

Black is the traditional sign of respect, demure, reverent recognition. Of course she wore black.

But she wasn't mourning just anyone. This was him.

He was winter, so she bought a black coat. He was spring, so she bought black boots. He was fall, so she bought a black skirt.

He was summer.

He was always complimenting her on her bright colors. "I like that scarf; it makes your face light up."

"I think that's my favorite shirt you wear. It's so pink."

He was summer.

She bought blue shoes, a purple handbag, a green bracelet, and the brightest most colorful scarves everywhere she found them.

When someone leaves, there's a sense in which they are gone. When they die, in a way, they are never coming back.

But when they are loved, they stay.

She kept him close in colors. She wore black for months. Eventually she stopped. She moved on, she even loved again.

But she never stopped dressing brightly.

She loved him, she mourned, she moved on. The brightness of his memory never faded. It stayed beyond him, in her.

He was loved, he left, he was kept.

[cheerytype]

Fear of Flying

"It's not our darkness that we fear. It's our light we're most afraid of."

I have darknesses like procrastination and lying and nightmares. They're small and pervasive and nagging and they drag. I picture them as shadows attached to my feet. No matter how much I shake they won't fall away. Tying me to the grey and the rotting undergrowth, I walk alone.

I have light. It's huge. It's wide, all-encompassing. I see it spreading out like eagle's wings in the sky from the perspective of a camera that follows the bird as it takes off into the air starting so fast and gradually relaxing, just soaring with confidence and freedom and beauty and this amazing fulfilling drive keeping it going.

I want to run like lions, tigers, cheetahs, mountain lions. I want to go fast and take over and reach far places faster than the next person with this fire and energy that will burn up the grass beneath my feet but that's ok because I'm leaving it all behind. I want that... but it's scary.

I have light, and I'm afraid of it. It means being seen.

It means standing out, being bigger and more beautiful and taking attention because there are so few eagles.

The standard was always mediocrity. My classmates didn't try very hard to solve problems; they waited for someone else to speak up. The smart kid is despised because if one grade is good we won't get a curve. The smart ones make more work for the rest of us so we convince them to shut up and stay down. We sigh and groan and ask them to please give it a rest, we all just want to go home.

I fell into this constantly, out of fear of the bullying. My classmates wouldn't befriend me if I was the one trying too hard for success. This was a lie I perpetuated but it came true in school so I shut up and sat down. Did it get me more friends? No. It gave me more people to sit with around the lunch table, but it was only a time to complain. "This class is so hard. The teacher is so mean. Did you do the homework? Neither did I." I always did the homework. I always tried. But I wanted friends, so I complained, and I lied.

My life went on like this for years. I stopped feeling the urge to rise up and spread out and come alive in the innermost part of my being. I forgot what it felt like to stretch my hands so wide out from my center that I could feel it in my chest muscles. I forgot the rush of diving fingertips first into cold water and grinning underwater, kicking out and swimming harder and faster than anyone, not because I was faster or better, but because no one else was swimming. No one else had dove. "It's too cold. I'm too tired. You're weird."

I fell. Into a slump I didn't rise from for years. Then one day I met a girl who danced with me in the main streets of major U.S. cities. Her laugh was so loud she could silence a bar. She scared me but she encouraged me and brought me to life. Little by little, inch by inch, I pulled out of my slumber and together we took over the world. For the first time, I could be honest about what was inside.

She doesn't know this but I was afraid of her. I was afraid of myself. Sometimes I still am. Because there is so much joy in my bones waiting for a hand to hold to reach out and pull me along to a sun beam or a rain puddle or the cliff face of the universe saying, "stand here a while and feel the wind and let the whole world see you glimmer and spark."

I've always been waiting. For a hand and a heart and a pair of feet. For things I have always had of my own. What am I waiting for?

Where is my sun beam? I'm ready to fly.

[cheerytype]

How do you

Make something italic?

/I don't know/

[cheerytype]

Anxiety

"Anxiety is a killer," they said, "it's crippling."

But have you felt this energy, this buzz? How my heart tells my eyes to dart and my fingers to nervously fiddle with everything they touch; I wouldn't describe that as crippling.

It's more like I was put on a horse without a saddle. Someone gave the horse caffeine and then put it in a stall twice its length. It can go forward and back and it can bump against the walls, bruising my knees and giving me a headache with its constant rearing and bucking. I cling on so tightly and I don't know why I'm on the horse in the first place. Did I ask for this? Is it my fault? Why won't they let me out? Why can't I get off? Let me go.

But my thoughts aren't even that clear. I'm frantic. I have to stay on the horse. I have to survive but it's out of control and I can't think of a single solution. It hurts more and more but I won't notice the pain until it's over and I'm left standing too close to the corner of the room, just wanting to disappear but people keep walking over to me and past me and asking if I want to dance. No, can't you tell I'm in a corner? Go away...

Anxiety is...well it's not what you would expect. The panic attacks aren't fretful frantic shallow breaths and shaking. My thoughts don't race like a horse on a track. They're halting, empty, directionless. They want to go in a straight line but I can't see the line or the object or feel the tilt of the earth on its axis. I've got nothing but I can do this and things keep falling out of my hands and I keep running into walls and I can't remember anything for the life of me why can't I just get this right?

Maybe it is crippling. Maybe they're right. But have you felt this __________?

[cheerytype]

Reader

You took my book from the shelf and I cringed. Your hands were too confident and I was afraid you would open to the end or the middle and judge me without context.

You bent the cover back and your thumb glided across the pages, breathing air into the spaces between them. You inhaled and I felt like I may have found my home. I still wasn't sure. What would you think of the smell? Would it bring you nostalgia or distaste?

Your eyes didn't reveal your thoughts as you skipped over the editor's note and flipped to the first page of chapter 1. As you read the first line, eyes staying on those initial words, I could feel you judging them against every other first line you've ever read. Competition against Narnia, Percy Jackson, and A Wrinkle in Time is a daunting task. Would it be enough? Would you continue?

You closed the book and I tensed inside. You turned it over in your hand and read the back description. That silly thing. How much could it possibly tell you that actually reading the pages wouldn't? Just give it a try. Go back to that chapter. Please.

You tucked it under your arm and continued browsing the shelves. You found a favorite author and I watched you lovingly caress the spines of his life's work. Jealousy surged inside and I tried to keep it from showing. My story was still under your arm and they were still on the shelf. I held onto that hope.

After a minute of wandering around aimlessly, you cracked open the book again and stared at that first page. Your eyes darted back and forth from line to line. Curiosity overcame you and you turned the page. My heart leapt. I could have danced right then. I had you hooked.

I can't wait until you get to chapter 3... You're going to love me. I know it.

[cheerytype]

May 14, 2018

I like painting with words. When it works, you get to see my world, even if it's just in black and white.

In my world, there are trees, some of them, but not nearly as many as back home.

What do you see? I guarantee you it's different from what I see in my world. But now you know something about me: I'm somewhere I didn't used to be. There's this place called home that I don't associate with where I am.

But (ah!) you're wrong. I call this world my home. It's where my gps thinks home is. That's what happens when you go back to a place often enough. Technology says, "Ah! She's gone back to this place almost every day for four months. She must live there." And it would be right. Right now, my world is home because it is where I live.

In one month, my world will change. I had no idea it would all end so quickly. My departure date has not changed, but time has moved so much more quickly than I anticipated.

What am I doing? I'm painting, but not the type of painting I first thought I would be doing when I sat down to write. I thought I would try to put in black and white all my greens and blues and yellows and purples and funny odd pinkish browns. But what has happened is that I've come to realize that my world is so much more of what is inside me than what is outside of me. What a funny thought.

My world...is fluctuating. Change is everywhere. My surroundings change every few weeks. My clothing style has changed. My music preferences have changed. All these new changes are mixing with the old world. Is this how the settlers felt? Trying to cling to two worlds at once?

The only way I can deal with all these colors spinning around my person is to go back to the black and white. Writing separates my palette into parcels, naming each change; picking it up, scribbling an identifier on it, setting it down in its place.

Picking up the next data point, the elephant in the room, I stare at it. It's grey. It hasn't ever adapted into anything despite all the change going on around it. It has stayed like a stain on my psyche. It's an emotion, unfortunately.

Lately, I've made tremendous progress putting names to those. "Ah! That is anger," I'll say, wrapping up the emotion in tin foil and setting it in the fridge to chill. Serves it right. I've gotten better at noticing when I'm happy or frustrated (that can be difficult to name properly) or *vyoom* missing the point.

The grey one, though, the little enormous 2-D lump collecting on the ceiling of my mind is probably regret. Probably. That will be its tentative name until I do something else stupid enough to come close to mirroring the effect that the grey one has had on me.

You see, change can be exciting, like changing worlds, but it can also be scary, like discovering new colors. Change goes back into your past and paints over your experiences with emotions. At least, that is what it has done for me.

In my world, there are trees, some, but also clouds. Many more than there were back home.

[cheerytype]

To My 15

Keep writing in those notebooks. You'll read through them a few more times and even though they don't turn out as well as you think, they will be what forms you.

I'm sorry I let you be so grumpy in school. I'm sorry we couldn't make conversation or help your friends out of their home lives. It's not much easier now, but it's your day job so that's something.

Keep running but don't rely on that for strength. You are good at running but it's true when they say nobody is looking at you, just themselves. Nobody from high school even keeps up with you, so please try not to think about them too much.

I'm sorry I let you be lazy about art. It's such a joy in our life and what did we do instead of art homework? Literally nothing. That's my fault. You'll pick up art again and pen is really the way to go.

Don't stay up so late at night. It's not worth it. Drink water, go to sleep early, learn how to pack a salad. We still don't eat that many salads, but we figure out how pointless late nights are. Except all-nighters. Thinking about those might make me cry, but they were important.

I wish I could tell you that you should be figuring out how to dance now, but I know there weren't any opportunities for it at the time. Don't worry, you'll get into dancing by the time you're 21/22.

I'm sorry about letting you flirt in the nerd club instead of learning the electrical system. We could have gone far with that knowledge and the flirting only means that you'll cringe every time Valentine's Day and Palm Sunday come around. Don't ask. You do stop looking at his Instagram eventually.

Keep trying out for parts in the school plays. If you step out of your comfort zone you'll discover that you're good at this. You'll even do this as your summer job for a few years. So don't give up on that even though you are so alone.

I'm so sorry that you're so alone. I'm glad you don't feel it but that makes me sad too because you stopped trying to feel at all and it bites you eventually. In four years...well it'll get tough and you'll be too tough to realize just how bad it really is. We still haven't recovered from our own lack of feeling, attachment, respect for another human being, one in particular. You will learn to love humans, but it will take breaking a heart or two to do it. I'm sorry.

I know the situation at home looks pretty hopeless. You've hit a stalemate with a few behaviours, four of them, that have you trapped. It doesn't look like it could change for the better but it does and God is doing really cool things in each of your lives. You'll hear stories and see things that will cause you to well with tears a thousand miles from home because you never thought you would ever hear those words and they wouldn't mean anything to a single other person but they mean the world to you. It's going to be better.

Can you believe it? You become strong, not out of fear, out of kindness. You become loud, not for power, for joy. You become quiet, not out of weakness, out of respect. You become beautiful, not through makeup, through confidence. You smile. Not all the time. I don't know what we were thinking.

Next year, you'll start to become even more cynical. The year after that, you'll learn what fear feels like. The nightmares will start and they won't (I'm crying) won't stop for a long time. The year after that, you'll end something that never really started. The year after that, you'll make the hardest decision you've ever made and it will cause you more pain than you have ever experienced. The year after that, you'll be more alone than you are at fifteen if that's possible. Last year, you faced your fears and overcame them. You mended so many friendships and started to step away from others. This year, well it's just begun and I can't wait to see what you'll do with this whole new world of choices and courage and freedom and responsibility.

You'll forget fifteen. It forms you, but fifteen was a blip. In some ways you'll regret forgetting, like Minnesota and Florida, but in other ways it's good and keeps you open to staying in the present where you belong.

You've got this, writer runner shower-singer. One step at a time.

[cheerytype]

Lifeline

“Dear Self,” it began

In what must have been

My very best penmanship

It went just one line

In periwinkle blue before

Changing to a modest black pen

“It’s 2022” scratch out “23...

It’s not easy to know what to say.

They say I should write

Just in case I forget

Sometimes things like that happen,

You know...”

I can’t remember how many times

I sat down just to pick up my pen

And drop it again.

I didn’t want to say the words

In my head: “If you read this

In 2033 or 38... if you happen

To make it that far...”

When I finally did,

The words flowed into red

On that college ruled page:

“It’s called aarhythmias...

I’m not quite sure why,

But they always say that word instead

Of ‘your heart won’t beat right

It’s just slowing down, but slowly,

And we’ve never seen this before.

We’re not sure, at this rate,

Just how long it will take,

For your body to realize...’

You’re dying, my Self,

Why am I not in tears...

It’s been so hard to know

For so long.

It’s August now,

And it’s blistering hot.

All I want is to swim in the sea.

I want to be out there

Building sand castles

And running from pier to pier...

But I’m inside working on

My eighty thousandth puzzle...

I hate those crooked cut-out lines...”

My eyes filled with tears,

Recalling that summer,

No one said it was the very last time.

But they all thought it inside

Just like me, cuz we knew:

My heart would end me up here.

So I’m writing to tell you,

It gets better sometimes

And the things you forget

You replace

With other things brighter

And newer and cleaner

To patch up the hole that just grows.

If I could sing this little song

With the last breath in my lungs

I would tell you I’m glad that you wrote.

I kept this letter in my pocket

All those years, and read it

Again and again...

You kept me alive,

Wanting oceans and sands

And the care that comes with

“Dear Self,”

[cheerytype]

Unlike

Of all the things that make sense, this was not one of them.

Sure, all those people could be in my house at the same time. I have a big house and all those people know each other. Her parents and yours and mine and everyone who was there for New Years’ Eve too. That’s not what messed me up.

Some things are sacred. Like the doors of churches and the grounds of cemeteries. Some things are private. Like security codes and the past between you and me. It’s when you broke that trust that I broke too.

I was carrying a mug with coffee and then sugar in it too. Your voice reached me at a volume that would have made sense with the right subject. But you were talking about me to my father. About us and what happened and how it ended and how it was all my fault.

I know you. That’s not you. You keep secrets better than I do and that’s saying something. You are considerate and careful and kind and this was not you. Even with me standing in the same room you didn’t stop talking.

“‘Remember those times it felt like we weren’t even friends? Remember that because that is true.’”

I never said that.

Stop.

But then he and you walked away and joined the group and suddenly everyone was together, happily ignorant of the stone that had replaced my belly.

You don’t talk about the past.

And you don’t lie.

So if that’s not you,

Then who is that?

[cheerytype]

On Promises

You never told me that everything would be okay.

You never tried to tell me the pain would go away.

You never said you would be there for me.

You never said you would fix me.

You never promised me the moon.

You never promised me anything.

Instead,

You said,

“I am here.”

And yet,

Is that not

A promise too?

[cheerytype]

Update: I got my drive in! It was perfect. Decided on driving east.

[cheerytype]

Drive the Sun

I’m gonna chase the sunrise tomorrow morning. I’ll probably be back before you wake up. I’ll leave before first light. I just need to watch day break over the hood of my car. I want to see every drop of sun show up on the horizon. You know?

You know how I just need to run sometimes? Like my brain won’t work and my body won’t do anything right until I’ve run? Maybe it only takes a mile or two or three and then I’m okay again? It’s like that.

I don’t know how I’ll even get to sleep tonight. I want to go now, but that would be a long drive. It will probably only take an hour, maybe two or three. I’ll be back before you realize I’m gone; I’ve just gotta drive.

I think east will be best. I don’t want the sun in my rear view, and the trees would hide it if I went south. Might go north. I’ll figure it out in the morning. I’ve just gotta drive.

It wouldn’t be the same to sit on the porch and watch it. I need to be moving toward it. I need to find where the sun comes from and then I’ll be home. I promise.

[cheerytype]

Inside

It was 4 am.

His laptop was on his bed, open to a new bright-white document. It sat untouched near his knee.

In his hand, his smartphone endured a furious swiping and tapping between apps and pages as he searched for meaningless answers to unrelated queries. He wouldn't look away.

Occasionally his unoccupied hand reached for coffee and slowly he accepted a sip, eyes glued to his screen. It's a skill he maybe perfected, but more practice couldn't hurt.

Every other second or so, her words came back to his mind. "Try your hand at writing again. I dare you!" They hadn't seen each other's faces in three weeks, but he imagined over and over again how she looked saying those words. Emphasis on "dare" and a wide grin with the exclamation point.

His swiping and scrolling became more vigorous. He had no more questions, just watched his Facebook feed fly by, not acknowledging any of the Christmas card families or half dozen recipes for pumpkin cookies.

Finally his finger slammed down on the hold button. He stared at the black screen, brooding, trying to think of anything else that could distract him from the blank page in his periphery. He sipped his coffee down to the dregs and stared at the opposite wall.

His legs had grown numb from sitting cross-legged on his bed, back against his pillow propped between him and the headwall. Easing his feet out from under him, he woke his phone up and stared at his options, waiting for his irritation at himself to die down. Pain tingled along his arteries as blood returned to his legs. He endured, concentrating on the colors in the Google trademark.

As the tingling faded, his eyes found the open document and allowed himself to search for opening words. Maybe if he started in the middle... He set his phone aside, not too far, and moved his computer to rest on his lap.

"You're a fool," he whispered, eyes clenched shut, "you're a darn fool."

His fingers flew across the keyboard. One by one and a dozen at a time came the words that filled first one line and then one page after another. He wrote what he should have written years ago. Should have gotten off his chest instead of using it all to construct an inner tower of loathing. Stone bricks of past regrets, parapet of personal disgust, he wrote into his prose the foundation of his hate and sorrow and long-lost hope.

"What are you living for?!" He bellowed into the stillness. He caught his breath and realized his heart had been racing. It was all there in the sterilized, black and white characters. He paused, gathered his thoughts, and wrote on.

Inside the tower now, he filled in the details of how the tapestries had come to be. Each threaded picture told the story of a different battle for his soul.

It was a small tower. It had no rooms, no floors, and no windows. But it rose high into the cloudy atmosphere, spiraling upwards as more and more bricks were laid into the precedent left by years of building and building.

It was a beautiful, sad tower. Entirely made of grey stones which had been carefully painted blue. On the inside, a new tapestry had begun to take form near the top of the tower. It would be very large by the end of its intricate process of sewing. In its fresh corner one could make out a sky of gradient orange and magenta making way for a red sun. That was all there was of the masterpiece thus far.

The young man let his hands fall away from the keys, having written himself out of words. This couldn't have been what she meant, but here he was with a story of stories about a lonely stone structure and the wars it had seen.

[cheerytype]

Kansas

​There are rocks and trees Across the plains Of the whole United States But here and there Are crops of green Or brown which stand apart. They call them prairies Or great wide lands Which stretch for many miles Holding pockets Of standing water Which quench the herding cattle. Nowhere else Is the sky so large As these far reaching fields Where the stars at night Surpass the count Of people round the world 

[cheerytype]

Space

How did we get here?

Looking down

The stars which stood

Above me

Now hover all around

These silver walls

Have been

My home for years

And you

With me now and then

How did we get here?

Long exams

Gravity practice

Endless nights

Dreaming of where I am

These silver walls

Housed only

Machines and lights

Now us

No longer lonely

How did we get here?

Deep inside

Heaven's black expanse

Dotted with

Rocks and gaseous light

These silver walls

A lightyear

Or thousands from

Everyone

How did we get here?

[cheerytype]

"What Was it Like?"

It changes you, as a person, to help someone reconcile after they make an attempt on their own life. If it’s your first time giving that kind of encouragement, you have to learn the hard way what not to say and what things actually help. The concept of suicide has always been slightly detached for you because though you may know someone who succeeded, you did not really know that person because they did not know themselves. It was hard for you then, but this is different. This person has come out on the other side and they have nothing. You learn that they need to know their God-given worth and value so that they begin to learn how precious and valuable they are. It becomes very real for you after this. Both the value of self and others, and the reality of suicide and depression and what it does to a person. As you help them realise their worth, you change as you take to heart this intense truth. Here is the clincher: this person now needs you to know for sure what you are communicating to them. A half-hearted effort will not do. You study and you put passion into this because they need you to be absolutely real and sure. You may see your own worth for the first time through this. Your confidence and (here is another big one) gentleness mean the world to this relationship and they will impact how this person faces the world from here on out. They will develop a confidence and gentleness unlike any you have ever seen and you discover that you have those qualities too, however rusty they may be. Helping this person to recover changes and matures you. You see the world differently. You’ll be tired for a while, but you’ll be more prepared to help the next person who needs that sense of worth and life. And there will be another. The world is broken and you have been given the words of eternal life. You now realise this with more power and gumption than before and you start to look for people who need help. It never stops. You can rest from time to time, but you have a job to do that will never run out of patients. One day, you’ll struggle with all of this and you’ll question everything, but that time of doubting will open your eyes to those who want to help you in return. You see in new fullness how God works in His creation and He will make it clear that He has more and good work for you to do. He’ll be right there to help you every step of the way and you become more secure in your faith because this interpersonal relationship stuff permeates everything. It’s crazy stuff, but it can turn into something beautiful. Here’s to you, Survivors. Stay strong.

[cheerytype]

Reservations

“Thanks for waiting for me.” “No problem,” he said, barely keeping his cool. She came down the stairs too quickly, she was still nervous. He watched her breathe deeply and try to figure out what to do with her hands which were sweating already. Like the gentleman he was, he took his handkerchief out of his pocket and opened it to her. She smiled shyly and patted her hands against it softly, trying to get used to the idea that he was about to take her to a fancy dinner - no, don’t think about that. She held the silk out to him and he graciously folded it back into its pocket. She took one more deep breath, no longer trying to hide what was so visible, and straightened her back. Through these seconds, he didn’t say a thing, just waited for her to develop her calm. “Thank you.” She said with a genuine smile. “You’re very welcome,” came the soft reply.

She waited, knowing he would get her door. When he did, she stepped out and took his arm after he closed the door again. They stepped over the grass of the curb and clacked their way along the walk to the doors. She never felt more elegant than she did with her hand in his arm. If she whispered in his ear, his free hand would wrap around the fingers that clung to his elbow as though that helped him hear better.

Music floated through the restaurant, settling her nerves. He pulled out her chair for her and invited her to sit with a touch on her back. Most of the other gentlemen at their tables were not making much effort for their ladies. She let her head rise a little farther from her shoulders. Her man took care of her and she him. And the food was delicious.

The nervousness twittered slightly inside her as he held out his hand, but she smothered it, telling herself to trust him. He wasn’t much for dancing, but he initiated. She followed his lead to the floor and spun into his arms easily. After a round, she settled into his pace and rested her temple on his shoulder. He kept his head high, but she knew she had done the right thing. A few more rounds and she lifted her head, inviting him to spin her if he wished. On cue, he danced her out and back, carefully and cleanly. Her gentle smile spread across her face and she glued her eyes to his as they swept the floor.