Monday, January 07, 2008

We Have Shawls. And Slayer. We Can Wait.

Still dark here. No rain today, at least not on me. Just cold, and blue sky. More forgiving, but that kite is still stuck in the tree and I'm not sure it's ever coming out. I am not expecting joy right now, but still, every day, I get it.

My heart's the bitter buffalo

I'm going through a Modest Mouse phase, and had to stop Harry Potter last night when he said "I just feel so angry, all the time. What if after everything that I've been through, something's gone wrong inside me? What if I'm becoming bad?" That's it, Harry. I asked too, and found out the answer and that's where I've been the last twenty years. Here in my house now, I have shawls, and I knit more and pass them on, and that's the spell I cast on grief. Every day I talk to more than one person who has loved me more than ten years, without even sharing my same blood, and every year I meet more than one person whom I intend to love for ten years more.

this is the part of me that needs medication

This is not a Britney style breakdown, just fatigue, a wondering what matters, a lot of long walks and thoughts that don't hang all the way together and stories with no moral to them. But I can count six couples I admire, and that seems like a lot to me, and there is all this knitting, and that always hangs together, every time. If it didn't, you would rip it out and start again, and keep on making it until you had something that might help someone you love.

on this life that we call home the years go fast and the days go so slow

The joy comes back. It's not even up to you. It's just what time does. The sunrise stops coming later, and things start to taste like something good again. And all that time, the shawl you wore was warm. That's how you one day wake up happy.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Heather, this made me cry and I'm not completely sure why - which is the best reason to cry, always. There is more than the shawls - beautiful and warm though they are - there is the writing, and it works the same way as the knitting.

Unknown said...

I love this so much.