VerySo

Luvvie Ajayi Jones It’s on my right knee. In the shape of a chicken’s foot, a lightning strike with three legs, and is a dirty purple color that to this day I claim is the gravel that was left inside and my skin grew over.   I must have been about 10 or 11, it was when we were living on Pryor Rd in the late 80’s and I was riding my ten speed through the neighborhood behind our house. It began to rain and I hurried too fast around a turn, spilling onto that super tiny almost soft (but actually little daggers) kind of dusty gravel. My knee was black and felt like it was burning. I made it home as fast as I could, crying through the house to find Mom. She administered first aid in her bedroom bathroom by pouring hydrogen peroxide generously over my bloody dirty knee and I felt so betrayed by that sizzling sting. Then Neosporin, then bandaid, then a summer-long scab that I thought my mom’s friend Marcia’s pool would heal. And no amount of dog licks worked either.  So, 35 years lat...

I need to be writing down the good days. It’s come to this. I need to keep track of this. Proof.  Sometimes the clouds part and the mirage fades/the fog burns off and I see a glimpse of things being okay. This weekend I woke up early and didn’t begrudge it, I *embraced* it. I made a giant breakfast of waffles with the new waffle maker I finally got around to buying, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, fresh cut strawberries and blueberries. People ate as they got up from bed throughout the morning/afternoon. I napped. Found soccer cleats for Ivy at Play It Again Sports. She’s starting soccer this week and is all prepared now. Big relief.  Carter bought a new used car and needed help transporting the vehicles back and forth to Salem so we made a family trip of it and after we dropped him off where he needed to be, James, Luna, & Ivy and I hit up some stores for last minute school prep: Luna’s first Ulta trip (thankful to the gal helping us navigate the store & that she didn’t even...

Do you ever feel like you contain a galaxy? Inside you   And you fit it within your body, holding it in (at least that’s what we see on the outside)   No one could ever know your depths  And the strength that it takes to shoulder that wall, it all. And that this is why you seem so far away even though you are right here  This is why when we find each other  we call out. It feels so rare to be seen from so far away! (So you must be special.) (We must be special.) I’m on day two of a pretty intense anxiety spiral, facing some consequences of previous choices (or non-choices, “I'll be better off there  Where there's nothing to choose 🎶  So there's nothing to lose”)   but  I’m  being loving to myself by taking things slow, really feeling the many different waves of emotions: it is so uncomfortable but I love waves! So I’m listening to music (Portland Cello Project’s covers of Elliott Smith) with a glass of ice water, sitting in the sun. ...

Pre-divorce we had a refrigerator that could accommodate Costco trips and it had a water and ice dispenser in the door- crushed or whole. Sometimes I miss that part of that life, but not really. I was just thinking about it today with my hands deep in a bag of party size ice from the store. I transfer it into ziplocks to keep in the freezer on these hot weather stretches. The cold on my hands feels good and powerful and I like to fill my hands with as many cubes as I can. I store the rest in the mini fridge on the back porch that sometimes houses leftovers and the kids’ energy drinks     they think they’re sneaking in.   It’s Sunday night and I feel a sense of boredom. I feel like the further I get away from writing, the things distracting me start to lose their luster. That’s the only way I can explain why I get drawn back here.  The cobwebs need attention and then I remember oh, they actually have a purpose. It’s not that I forgot but it’s just not what I originall...