maybe its just the thoughts that were crooked all along

OBSCURA MUTABILIS

and the dark and night of the soul

Reflections on becoming, an ongoing project

4.4.25

Spring

LOVE LETTER TO THE OPEN ROAD

A woman at work lost her husband last year.
She’s 65.
She doesn’t know who she is anymore.
She sits in the home that they created together.
She knows she’ll never be with another man, forever.
Maybe we don’t know who we are without others.
All this talk of self sufficiency and
independence. Maybe
it’s a scam.

I wrote a love letter to the open road last week.
It spat in my face.

I lost my health insurance today. It feels like a call to get it together (because what a mess), but all I want is to meet you there.
Middle of nowhere.

I wasn’t alone when I took these. I was with someone. It was joyous, but it feels
lonely now.

I started getting social anxiety a few years ago.
House parties and groups make me feel
like I’m naked at a job interview.
I always wanted a group of queer friends,
except I don’t know how.
Maybe that’s why the road keeps callin.

I grew up in many homes.
I have a phd in escape artistry from the school of life.
Ask me why I left. Again
and again. Theories galore. But
I don’t want to be a
bore.

The essence of life
is suffering,
or so says Jenny Lewis.
We saw her live.
I want to sell it all and drive
into the sunset. (RE: escape artistry. See above)

Who’s lost a friend to unrequited love?
All the things left unsaid?
All the assumptions and misunderstandings.
I’ve lost many. To that, to the distance, the belief that they’re better off, to the open
road.
I’ve gained a fair bit too.

And what is the open road without these thoughts in my head and my hands on the wheel?
what is the open road without the wind in my hair and a destination unknown?

kleenex

These photos were taken 2 years apart today.

The first one in a hotel in Utah. The second a bathtub in Chicago.

I’ve cried in the likes of hotel rooms and bathtubs.

Crying in the bath is particularly convenient.

No mess and easy to submerge and emerge, face anew. Voilà.

Cars. I’ve cried in so many cars.

Bars. A few of those too,

most recently holding a very strong piña colada, across from a friend.

People need to cry more, You know?

I’m going to keep crying, I tell you.

And one day, the tears of which I’ve mourned so deeply will run dry.

Undoubtably I’ll have something or someone else to cry about because alas, It’s me, the sap.

I cry at the simplest of things now,

but I also see the beauty in the smallest things too.

That’s the thing about being sensitive.

Ugly crying on the subway. I’m talking snot.

Crying about the fact that all that love just wasn’t enough.

The woman across from me is curious,

I can tell.

Who wouldn’t be, I guess.

Let it out, she says.

Let it out.