The other night I sat in the car in the dimly lit co-op parking lot and sang Enjoy the Silence along with the radio, and for a moment it felt just like it always feels to sing that song. I missed Chicago and dancing with my friends, and then I went into the warm, bright store and bought bok choy and carrot cake and forgot toilet paper. These repeating moments that transcending time and current events are so precious to me in their mundanity. They tumble to the front of my mind where I work them over until they become smooth, like the lake rocks I slip from my coat pocket into my mittens during long walks, burnished soft by absent minded devotion, the chamois of fingertips.
In the face of the ever uncertain future, I’ve thrown myself into taking stock of what makes me feel safe and secure so I can shore those things up for holding heavy burdens. So far the list is very predictable. A good quantity of sweet potatoes on hand at all times. Lentils. Many socks in progress. How-To books. Cracked shot glasses full of seeds. Daily connection with my small group of big hearted thinkers. Rocks, rocks, rocks. I feel solidly on this Earth when friends mail me books they’ve read and loved, new copies I can keep on my own shelves- portals between our homes. In one I find a reference to the on-foot migration across Europe that coincided with my Opa and his mother’s long walk. I never knew it had a name. That, too, grounds me.
I have had time to voraciously consume these books and write these lists because I’ve been sick. I fall asleep alone in the bed with my glasses and knitting scattered next to me on the mattress and wake up to read while fevering at odd hours in the night. At 4AM I look at photos of our unlined faces from five years ago, set against backdrops so specific to Chicago that my heart lurches south. I’ve been careful not to dig too deep into that time- it’s full of sinkholes and landmines, the pandemic. But in the hot, still dark after midnight I dive in and find riches there. Videos of snow falling outside of the kitchen windows on Barry Street. Babies, so tiny. Alleys I walked down so often I knew them better than the streets. It’s amazing how nostalgia can flip like that, from something that drowns to offering up buoyancy.
When the sun comes up I can make out the smoke from neighbor Mike’s chimney through the thin tablecloth-turned-curtain hung in our window. The light gleams in, unadulterated through the small tear I mean to patch every morning and then forget about when the sky goes dark. It took me six months to hem this curtain. I’ll never mend that hole. In bed socks fall off my needles at such a clip it almost matches the rate at which I pull the holey ones from the drawer and abandon them to the mending pile. My fever breaks and I can still smell- my own sweat, the cold air caught in the wool blanket, and the coffee Tavi is starting in the kitchen. Small stones, worn smooth.
<3
Grace
this was beautiful to read
Sending big hugs!