slow sunday morning ii
Here I am again, sipping coffee at a nice 2:09pm now. It seems my slow mornings are now sprawling out into the early afternoon. And once again, my room is quiet after a night out with my lovely friends.
Last night, I had the most quintessential girlhood experience of the late night sleepover talk with my friend. We chatted about everything that we could only say in the dark of night in a little dorm room, where we couldn't see or feel the judgement of the world. We chatted about how our self worth as people and as women, how our decisions and paths have changed and shaped who we are now. As it's always discovered, our lives paralleled each other's much more than we thought.
Last Sunday I wrote of the slowness of my mind, and last Sunday I was just starting to fear that it was a permanent change. That I had run out of steam in some way, but I always forget that life ebbs and flows.
This morning, freshly after my room emptied out, I listened to a poem from my friend Devon (the one I caught up with last week!) that thoroughly resonated with me.
Every summer I forget the salty aftertaste of winter that sears my tongue.
I forget how the kitchen yellow of my teeth still sticks to the white splinters my braces left when I was 15.
I forget the way my mom's calluses corroded my hair. Her perfume would taste better than any ketamine.
I forget the smell of heartbreak while in love, and the ballroom indirectly full of innocents while flirting.
My heart is a trapped coyote.
My God, let it run, cry, scream, fuck.
Let it be everything and everyone.
By the time winter gets me drunk on her mouldy kisses, by the time I'm hungover,
I'll remember everything I've forgotten.
When I feel most alone, I forget that there's others that have known and share my pain as well as my joy. That others get so enraptured with the world that words and art and music and all of the above spill out because they simply have to create. I think I've gotten caught in the cycle of fearing the world again, but I finally feel free after my little fall slump.
Last night, my friend carved a diagram into my memory foam bed, flanked by our two pillows. Here you are, she said, and drew a circle that pressed down with the trace of her finger. And here's everyone else, she circles, circles, circles around my bed.
No matter what you do, if you're dancing in the pit, if you're embarrassing yourself, everyone else is way too selfish to even notice. She swipes away the imaginary circles. You're selfish for even thinking that other people would care.
In the altruistic missions of my friends to share their art, no matter how messy, personal, cathartic, it would be wrong of me to selfishly keep my work to myself. To be caught up in the thought that others don't or can't resonate.
I actually got a little appreciation email after my last Sunday note, with quite the simple point. That they love slow mornings too, sipping away at coffee with their partner. How wonderful is it that no matter what side of the world you're on, everyone has their own parallel morning rituals?
All this to say, we all understand each other so much more than we know. Today, the leaves have fallen a bit more, giving me a slightly clearer view of the canal to sip away to.