Staying Put
no. 46
“Who will survive in America?”
- Just some lyrics
I like conversation hearts. I always have. I buy them at the store if I see them. “You’re enough,” Aunt Ellen and I read out loud. We both smile, mischievously.
Leif came to my bed last night after he had been tucked in. Enzo and Lucca followed closely behind. They rally for each others’ cause. I imagine them thinking, bro, I got your back, whatever we are doing. What are we doing, anyway?
“Mom, I keep having bad dreams.”
I want to tell them they are not real, and they will go away. But I stop myself, not quite sure if that is true. Instead, I go lay down with him. I notice how calming this is for me.
“Who’s going to be my person?” Enzo asks as he snuggles back under his own blankets. His person is always dad. Still, his question hangs, and is left unanswered. It’s my question, too. In Peru, we snuggled up with the boys before bed, I was with Leif, Enzo with dad.
Where’s my person? Photos of our wedding dance on my phone. We married early February. The boys and I look at the pictures. I think of all the things Leifer and I were able to do- marry, have children, start a business. And yet, he remains shut out. Who survives in this America? Who survives all this? Life is so precious. Wake up. Go talk to your neighbor. That’s the only way we get through this. That’s the only way I get through this, without my person, or Leif’s or Enzo’s or Lucca’s.
Aunt Ellen gave the boys a digital clock that plugs into the wall in their bedroom. They figured out there are buttons they can press on it. Click. Static. They turn up the volume and scare each other with it. I tell them they can play the radio. I show Leif the dial. He moves it, not realizing he is looking for a station. He tunes into one, it’s playing K Pop Demon Hunters. Enzo tells him to play Paw Patrol next, he doesn’t realize it’s not on demand. The boys bounce around the room.
I set the alarm on the clock last night. When it goes off this morning, beep beep beep blares through the speaker. Enzo looks at me, Mom is there going to be smoke? Do we need to get out? He thinks it’s the smoke detector.
My head blasts like the alarm. My guard stands guard for all of us. Leifer stands by, quiet. He watches the screen, sidelined. He coaches to the field. His players aren’t thinking. They quickly lose the object, and disperse. The dynamics are familiar. Leifer has something to give from his years on the field, but for now, he bides his time, patient with our humanity.
“Say I’m stronger and keep me close.”
- Jack Garratt
I reach a wall. I can’t get around it, I can’t go over it or past it. I’m stuck. I hit up against it, its presence never changes. Sometimes it’s a bit closer, sometimes it’s a bit further, but it persists. The wall is built of minutes and days that we wait- the mailbox checks. It started small, but it’s grown. I wonder how we will ever get up and over it now. My tears flow and moisten the ground. A Bougainvillea grows here. The walls protects, and creates a path for the tendrils to reach further. It stretches to the sun, to the light, to the nourishment. I can’t touch it, the thorns protrude and find me. It’s begun, but not finished. I look at it now, and start to see that the wall is not for climbing. It’s not my failure. It will remain and my tears will water it for now, but someday it will be abandoned. I will walk away. A marker. A keeper. I don’t hold the time, the wall does.
To my readers, my substack is free. I don’t like how the payments work and I turned them off. I don’t think they have a good payment model. I will write as I always have. I would write through darkness and pain and confusion and much of anything. Please keep showing up. In the words of Leif, “I am so in love with all of you.”
Abby, these meditations are beautiful. Between the already and the not yet, the waiting, and the wondering. I look forward to seeing you.
-Your Brother