Collected Hellos and Goodbyes

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Said to me III

I appreciate you for being a real one -MP

Sarah, you’re very special. Emma once described you as soulful and I didn’t know you well enough then but I see now that the journey you’re on is very soulful -LG

There is so much Sarah knows about what she knows and what she’s proud of and that’s the kind of thing that keeps me going -SO

Sarah my life will be empty when you leave here -BR

You’re so cool that I can see your dead skin floating in the air and it doesn’t even bother me -ER

I don’t know how much you know this but you were a huge part of getting me out of my depression -KM

You remind me of my grandmother, giving comes so naturally to you. The way you talk to people is like nothing I’ve ever seen before and it just flows out of you and it’s so natural. Don’t ever stop. Even the road you travel on will be like “Yes! Sarah’s traveling on me!” I love you and I’m kind of happy you’re showing your emotions it’s so raw and beautiful. -LG

[thankyouletterstomyself]

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Kevin and the Cows

He loves his cows,

he even dreams of them at night,

Under the moon which he named his dear Luna after.

He plays in their bale feeder and they all kiss him for more hay

We walk through the pasture early in the morning with dew on the grass

And coffee in our hands

Looking for baby calves

Scratching the heads of all his loves

Every single one;

Red face baby and wut-wut,

The first newborn running jumping after him like a little sister

Felt like being welcomed into his home

Before the family’s woken up

We close the gate on the way out.

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Days at the Lake with Elizabeth and the Crew

Home is a lake with a family that isn’t your family. Family is the inevitable weird uncle who somehow has always been your favorite, a poem about a sister he never had but always wanted, finding a sister you never had and never knew you wanted, being a different kind of sister to everyone, but always laughing. Family is a man who feels like a dad but makes you uncomfortable, and in the end you love him because he’s more of a dad than you’ve ever known. Family is accepting gifts and each other. Family is the way that you can whisper a whole conversation and everyone hears it anyways because voices carry on water and family is family. Home is learning how to swim and feeling free in the water and the way when you lie on your back in the water and your ears submerge it feels like a whole other world like the way angels or aliens must feel and why were you so afraid of it for so long? Family is knowing no one else could be so proud of you as the mixed-up, made-up family you’ve pulled around you like the hammocks they set up in the trees in the evenings. A family that wants to be around each other. Family is breathing in all the different smells of their cigarettes just to be in their company.

The summer is good when you’re burning at a lake. Sweat dripping down your nose and back as you sit at the picnic table eating lunch but dreaming of the lake which is only a fifteen minute walk away but there’s work to do and at least it’ll end and there’ll be the lake. Adirondack chairs painted bright colors, books that never really get read, sunglasses in the water, swimming between the docks, masses of people piled onto a water quilt or a paddle board, swimmers always grabbing on for a lazy joyride. The sound of loons calling for minutes, everyone stops talking. Two friends doing yoga on paddle boards like amazonians. Lying out on a dock that smells of cedar that was built by people that you love and holds you up and lures you out past your comfort zone until it feels like the only good place to be. Drawing seashells and salamanders and swimmers and the notebook getting splashed on because there is always an endless slew of dives, good and bad and mostly bad.

A summer at the ranch is a good place for a family that you’ve found. You can hold on tight, but a family at the ranch always changes and when you leave, you feel it the most. When you come back, it won’t be the same, like stepping in a river, but the lake will still be there.

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Been making things and baking in the sun and getting covered in hay and meeting new babies

[thankyouletterstomyself]

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Said to me, Cont. II

“You’ve got a big heart” -JW

“I trust you not to avoid a difficult situation” -LK

“Sarah I’m glad that we hang out like this. It’s good for me to have a friend.” -FL

“You sound like a Samuel Beckett play” -FL

“I wouldn’t put your underwear on my head if I weren’t flirting with you” -FL

“I just wanted to hold your hand” -FL

“You guys made it doable to be here. Better than it would have been if you weren’t here.” -JM

“I’ll even be your father” -G

“Wherever your hand goes mine will be there” -FL

“The way the sun is hitting your hair...you look like an angel, that’s what I’m trying to say. You look like an angel.” -FL

“I like hanging out with you guys” -EE

“It feels good to be close to you, Sarah” -FL

“I’m proud of you” -J(B)R, LS, FL

“I’m just calling to say I missed you yesterday I realized I didn’t see you at all” -FL

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Haying Season

The rash

The cuts all over your legs

Or the insides of your hands

Or the tender of your wrists

The hay pouring out of your boots

Sticking to your socks

Falling out of your underwear

Which is stuck with sweat to your skin

Hay like things that are glowing

Hay like his hair

During sex

Like a lion’s mane

Or a bundle of straw you can’t fit your hands around

No matter how hard you try

No matter how many times you run your hands through it

Getting caught on knots

Or clover

Hay floating in the lake

After you jump in

Covered in sweat and sunshine and mud from the pigs

Who happily shoved you around as you filled their water

Cool, finally

A body made well

Lake water like holy water

That baptized your hair when you first kissed him

A galvanized body

But still

Hay rolled into the cuff of your shorts

But still

Sunshine burned onto your skin

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Lying in the humus which smells warm and dirty and deep and like life and death or death turning into life or else it just reminds me of that but doesn't really smell like it he reads aloud to me of the strangeness of a father, something we both don't know because we both don't have and I think about how Brian Miller said I laugh like my father and the way my voice comes out is familiar, I am near the age my father was when they were drinking Dixie beer on the levee but they are sounds I don't know, neither his voice nor his laughter do I have any memories of and dragonflies have settled onto both our knees he doesn't even flinch but I watch as they pass back and forth between us and I realize that he has stuck his feet into the not-yet-ripe blueberry bushes and later after he's passed the book to me I hear myself mimicking the lilt of his voice or many just the way he punches out his T's and how the sound of me is made up of a bunch of choices and not choices but I am glad that it brings me closer and not farther.

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Classic Vermont aesthetic 

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Honestly really excited to start drawing again

[thankyouletterstomyself]

A good hike

[thankyouletterstomyself]

New friends

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Pictures I wish I had

-The box full of chicks arrived in the mail

-FL with his hair in a bun skiing on the lake towards the green mountains on the first day of spring

-FL skiing up a mountain with his blue hat which matched the mountains behind him and his blondblond hair that matched the trees before the mountains

-The light from the stained glass window picturing a skiier as it streams onto the rug on the ground of FinnHaven

-Our breath in the sunlight as we stood together reading past FinnHaven entries

-All of us together at the bar on CC’s last night

-Some way to commemorate lying together in the sun in the Chapel on the hill after skiing

-CC at Denny’s at 2am smiling and eating eggs but too drunk to get them in his mouth

-Crouching together on the floor by the help desk at Hannaford’s swapping stressful car stories

[thankyouletterstomyself]

FLirtations

in the dish pit: “what a dynamic duo”/ “there’s always room for a third” / “menage a trois?” / “she has no comment!”

“She is at times contradictory but we find that endearing”

“She will climb over you if you don’t move” / “that’s what I want”

“Cuddle party in Sarah’s bed” 

Adding his name to my kiss list on K’s cigarette pack

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Remember drinking K’s birthday wine at Kennedy Park and that good good real feeling of being there with her for her breakup and how good we must be for each other to be so happy and laughing together in such a poignant moment of rejection. 

[thankyouletterstomyself]

Said to Me, Cont.

“I’m going to miss you... When you get to know someone at a bar you get to know them pretty well.” -CC

“I mean, I think about you all the time.” -NC

“How special to be skiing together on the lake on the first day of spring!” -FL

“You guys are good company” -FL

“That hike was the best thing that happened to me today.” -HL

“I hope that you are where you want to be right now” -NC

“Do you know the more I learn about you the more I just adore you?” -KK

“You really have it together and I admire that about you.” -CJ

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. I haven’t met anyone that has dealt with things the way you have and I’m so impressed with you everyday.” -KK

“I’m really glad we did this, I’ve wanted to for a long time” -NC

“I like the way you smell.” -NC

“It feels like our bodies fit together really well.” -NC

“I’m so happy you’re my person. And you ARE my person.” -KK

“You are worth whatever extra effort is required on my part. That’s why I’m still trying” -BL

“I’ll just say that I too am thinking of you and you’re a great person to think about. I think everybody I have met since we’ve met has heard about you” -TH

“There is a connection that we have that makes me feel relaxed and comfortable when I’m with you. For me that comfort level usually takes much longer to establish with someone.” -NC

“You’re a pretty fast hiker.” -HL

“You are definitely the type of personality that attracts love. People adore you and care about you more than almost anyone else I know.” -KK

“I like your laugh, it’s infectious. No holding back”

“Some things just get her and she gets going.” -EM

Sometimes he calls me Storrs