Letters for Neverland

30 | PacNW Native | Dirt Obsessed | Scientist | Storyteller

[lettersforneverland]

06.18.2024

I haven't had anything to say in so long, the words have dried up in a way that I can't explain. Sometimes I think it's because for so long I was alone and in that emptiness all I had was my words, a plea I put on paper to anyone who might listen.

But everything is okay now. I'm not alone, even when I don't feel like I belong here.

Letters to Neverland, an idea born of childishness and regret, the desire to escape a life I had no control over. But that's the thing about ideas, sometimes they lie to you. And that's the thing about control, you never really have it.

You just keep moving forward and playing pretend until the dust settles.

[poisonwasthecure]

[lettersforneverland]

03.22.2024

My Mom didn't teach me how to cook. It's something that I think about when I'm making dinner or listening to holiday recap stories at work after a weekend. Mothers and Grandmothers with their daughters, matching aprons, bowls everywhere, hands covered in flour or holding spoons and spatulas. I have no memories of my Mom being that person. My maternal grandmother was gone before my Mom was six, choosing the road, casinos, and betting on horse racing over her 9 children. My Grandma Dorothy slipped into her own mind before I was five, so even though she was known for delicate hands making intricate pastries and pies that made people swoon, I never learned much from her.

Memories of the women who should have made me are replaced with people who chose to be present. A father who begged for his children and made us breakfast every morning. A friend's grandmother invited me to Easter and Christmas because she knew I had nowhere else to go. There were empty spaces in me that people tried to fill. The effort stopped the bleeding but didn't heal the wound.

I think often of how I've leaned heavily into the act of making food as a gift of my love; that the lack of maternal care I didn't have formed me into someone who wants to radiate maternal warmth.

I like to think, that somewhere along the line of my blood, there was a mother who knew how to love and care and cherish. And even though it skipped so many generations before me, that woman's heart became my own. And by that love is how I've survived and overcome.

[lettersforneverland]

09.02.23

I’ve never been a morning person. A long days stress would seep into my body, tensing my muscles, keeping me awake long into the night. Mornings were a chore - something I couldn’t get out of but hated. I’d wait until the very last minute, my blankets pulled tight over my body until I couldn’t stay in bed even a minute longer or I’d be late.

They don’t tell you that as you get older, things you thought were fundamental sometimes change. The girl who stayed up until 2am and never saw a sunrise in her life might one day be the one chasing them.

[lettersforneverland]

06.28.23

I've become one of those who says "I used to be..." It feels heavy when I realize the things I've let go of over the years. The 2am piano playing, my fingers struggling to find the last few keys from a Final Fantasy melody. The worn-in leather journals I'd scrawl in for hours, tears staining pages, lyrics scribbled on the margins. I'd get lost in libraries and bookstores for hours, curl up in a corner and read, wearing black slippers that I tucked under me and drown out the world with images and characters that pulled me to another place.

Change is constant but subtle. It's a creek slipping over rocks wearing them down. It's the creep of the glacier. It's the sand being pulled from the bank slowly. I am changed by life, moving through me and around me for years, wearing off the rough edges, smoothing out the pages of my story.

I used to be someone who filled life with things and movement - the need to be doing something or with someone was a gift that freed me from loneliness, from my own darkness, from the space that the monsters lived.

Quietly that person was put to rest, piece by piece until that darkness became a safe space and those monsters became friends. Love filled the cracks. Hope disintegrated that girl into ash and with that we grew ourselves a new garden.

[lettersforneverland]

04.10.23

And then one day the words just stopped coming. We filled the space with trips and sunshine and a child's questions; dinners that needed to be cooked and laundry that needed to be folded. There wasn't time in between commutes and the two hours set aside for the gym, the space of time you keep open to hearing about his day, the moments before bed you curl up under blankets with the same old gray cat and a smiling face that's developing lines around the eyes. It's been years since you felt the need to write a single word about what your heart is feeling. Your heart is full, but nothing is falling out. It's not that the pieces are caged in, but rather they're tethered there by something good, something real, something pure. Nothing is perfect. The rain still falls so long that it feels like everything is a puddle - your brain the same mush as the grass trying to accept the water. Your chest still tightens when you hear certain names, when you have to face big kid moments, or when the called ID reads "Mom". But perfect was never the goal. The words are safe because they can be spoken. They're pressed into others with big hugs and late-night kisses and fingers trailing on skin. It's been years and you don't even remember what it felt like to be broken.

[lettersforneverland]

And I surrender.

[aidashakur]

[lettersforneverland]

03.10.2022

You can get a little lost in a place like this - the fields stretching out in long gentle highs and lows to a dark fringe of evergreens. It’s not that you don’t really know where you are, it’s that there’s room for the heart and head to wander. It’s the birds outside the window singing preludes of spring. It’s the gentle swaying of the oak tree, the casualty of leaves and branches from winter making a nest at its base. It’s the way dark gray clouds intermingle with the white, slowly moving up the valley, dissecting a blue sky into pieces.

Ive wasted countless hours just letting the clock tick pass as I watch deer from my windows. The robins search for worms in the cut grass. Daffodils push their way to the surface. A Steller’s Jay hops from branch to branch in the walnut tree, screaming his morning hello. 

You can get lost in the quiet, the solitude. You can forget that time exists at all.

[lettersforneverland]

08.06.20

We’ve circled back to the beginning: hands on skin, lips on collarbones, and whispers in the dark. The lights are out and I cannot see his face, but  I can feel his guiding hands. This feels right and normal, like this is where my body is meant to be, wrapped into each other. I’ve spent days, weeks, months wondering if what happened three years ago was just a fluke, a moment in time where two people came together. 

I can’t let my heart get it’s hopes up. I can’t let myself believe in something that has failed once before. Where does this lead? Heartbreak? Heaven?  I’m only good at one thing... finding myself living the same lies over and over again.

[lettersforneverland]

07.22.2020

My heart hurts. 

[lettersforneverland]

And we made new choices.

[lettersforneverland]

04.12.20

It is Easter. The apartment is quiet except for the gentle cycling of the upstairs unit’s washer spinning. The silence of mornings is my favorite, a few brief moments I can process lifee without the noise and onslaught of conversation that comes from housemates. 

Mom has told me I have to wear my nice shoes, the white patent ones that press on my toes. “How will I climb the trees out back?” I ask her. I am eight and I like to climb trees. 

“It’s one day Lydia, you can behave for one day,” she responds shortly, pulling a brush through my hair. There is dirt under my nails and I pick at it mindfully, knowing she will be mad if I say more. 

I crawled out of bed for this brief moment of solitude; Luna curled up in the canyon between our bodies. J didn’t even open his eyes, his breathing deep and his exhales signaling to me he still slept. 

My sisters and I are matching. My brother, Kurrin, wears slacks and a white shirt. He looks handsome. I, the eldest, am supposed to be their role model. Mom chastises us for how noisy we are. I tilt my head back and forth, so my blonde hair swishes over my eyes cutting the bright light into flashes. 

“It’s Easter goddamnit,” my Mom says as she pulls into the church. “Just try for once to not act like a wild child.” 

There is a part of me that misses seeing sunrise, but my schedule is the opposite of normal, so I’m not sure I would know how to wake that early again. Outside the sun has risen, and the trees are still without the spring winds. 

“It is Easter. The day of rebirth. The day of atonement. The day of hope,” echoes the crowed. I can see the paintings of Jesus’ life and death as I walk in the church doors. Grandfather has placed fern fronds along the floors to represent palms. People stop me to tell me I look pretty and pat me on my back. I don’t want to look pretty, I want to go outside to the woods. My hopes are quickly quieted as the organist begins to play.

Last night before I slept the news was of 20,000 americans dead. We are due to “reopen” our country this week, despite being in the crux of the spread of this virus. Oregon has been safer than most places in the world. But nothing feels safe anymore. 

This is the day that the lord was reborn. He is risen. 

“He is risen indeed,” the congregation hums together. I fiddle with the edges of my dress, it is white with delicate flowers of pink and pale grey. My hair is short at my shoulders and my dress shoes hurt my feet. The church is bright around me. Cascading trails of origami peace doves hanging from the ceiling. 1,001 tiny little paper birds we folded and laced together. 

“This is a place of peace,” says Pastor Eileen. She wears a draped light pink robe embroidered with silver doves flying upwards. Her hands face upwards, bright light flooding through the stained glass behind her. “This is a place you will always be safe. This is where the world outside stops. This is where we find peace.” 

In the filled sanctuary, everyone bows their heads to join her in prayer. My eyes never leave the ancient stained glass windows, the view of the forest behind the church, the way the light moves through the strands of cranes as they dance under the tall church ceiling. 

1,000 cranes means a wish will come true. 1,001 means we can hope for wishes to come. 

I stare at the cranes, wondering if Jesus ever wanted to fly away too. 

[somethoughtseeds]

[leselfov]

[lettersforneverland]

04.10.20

I used to get up with the sun, fill my coffee cup and watch the Earth awaken. My home is no longer wide acreage and brilliant sunshine, but a tiny apartment above a busy road. In the mornings, I'd sit at the table and listen to the hum of traffic as people rushed to work. It was in those moments of solitude I realized how life evolves and moves forward whether we are prepared or not.

Now I wake up hours after it is warm outside, my room illuminated by golds and yellows of an early Spring sun. Sometimes I lay there and listen to the birds singing their praises, a song of clucks and crescendos that sounds better than most music to my ears. There are trees all over my complex, most of which were planted long ago to replace the decimated fir forests that grew before colonization. The ash and cottonwood make their own melodies in the morning breeze, soft whispers that lull me into contentment. I know I should get up. I know I have things to do. I am unprepared for the news every day. 

No one I know is gone. Yet. I write that with a heart filled with sadness for the stories of other losses. Disconnecting from the pain that is being felt worldwide is nearly impossible for my empathetic heart. I can feel the pain of the entire planet, begging for safety, for health, for forgiveness for whatever we did to bring this plague. 

My mind wanders to forest floors and the places I can no longer go. I am home but my spirit is there. Laying on floors of pine needles, smelling the decay of earthen gifts. I miss the way trees filtered light, and the sounds of silence that are so deafening with quiet life. 

I know I should get up. I know I have things to do.  But I am not even in this apartment. I am somewhere else, before all of this, before I thought there was nothing left. 

[lettersforneverland]

07.15.2019

I still haven’t learned to trust my instincts.  Or to not hold on too tight.  I haven’t found a way to let my heart be free. So I forget that I can’t control everything.  And even when I’ve “moved on”,  I'm not sure I’m okay with anyone else doing so.