Dear World Wide Web:
I write to you from another Saturday. The kids are suiting up to go sledding. Marianne Faithfull’s “Beware of Darkness” is playing in the living room. Watch out now, take care, beware the thoughts that linger, winding up inside your head…
In our little log home-bubble I can turn off the TV and forget everything but this. I’ve memorized every grain of wood in the knotted pine walls. I’ve repainted the only two rooms with drywall. I’ve changed the fixtures on all the cabinets and replaced the plastic light switch covers with new plastic light switch covers. In a little while, I’m going to plant the first seedlings of the season, and for the next few months my dining room table will be a makeshift greenhouse. This year’s garden is going to be unparalleled, I hope. Each year I carefully tend to every garden plant until Autumn flicks away the last worthwhile flower. I just ate cold Chinese Food and cracked a beer. Later I’ll nap, exercise, and then begin again.
My dog follows me wherever I go. He is sleeping on my legs as I write. He whimpers when we are apart. He looks to my face to signal what’s next. I think it is funny how he gives me so much power—I can make him bark with excitement with just a hint of a smile. He loves it when I growl playfully and chase him around the house. I do not love him as much as I loved my last dog.
I am sorry I haven’t returned your phone call. I probably still need to email or text you back. I didn’t wish you Happy Birthday. I didn’t thank you for wishing me a happy birthday. I have been avoiding the internet. How can I explain the weight of my shortcomings? Sometimes the chore of living is hard. The totality of me goes to the children. They get all my love, my joy, my jokes, clean laundry, and food. I am bad at so many things, but I will not fail when it comes to them. Every step of motherhood feels like the 11th hour of a crucial deadline I cannot miss.
I wish I could say I have been writing or reading. I have not. My time alone is fleeting. The kids have finished sledding. Soon I will make them lunch. I told them if they don’t let me finish writing I will return them for a refund and move to an island, and so I think I bought myself some time. Bert returned home with a bouquet flowers and some seedling starter soil. So much of what I have I do not deserve. I do not pause to cherish it.
Friends—last year was just so terrible. I’ve lost so much of me in it. But I know I am just the penumbra of a greater shadow—one ache among many. And so, as another day sloshes into the next, I write to you simply to say hello. I hope that you are well.
That Marianne Faithful song I mentioned has long since ended, but a line lingers:
Beware of sadness.
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore
And what is more,
That is not what
You are here for.
I miss you. I love you. I think of you often.
Love,
Kate
