Hey sweet one <3 I hope your week is going well.
Are you preparing for a holiday? Or maybe you’re taking the days as they come, not focused on any one thing in particular. Whether celebrating anything or not, I hope you find time to do something sweet for yourself.
Typically, whatever writing I send in these newsletters is something new, usually created over the weekend or even the night before, when inspiration finally strikes. I’ve been having a hard time writing right now (knowing it will come back). I feel like I’m in a bit of a strange spot. A couple of poems on hope and happiness I had written a while back recently picked up in popularity. It’s been wonderful to see so many people connect or let me know the words were something they needed to hear. At the same time, since writing those, I’ve fallen into somewhat of a rut and feel sad and detached from the poems, making it almost feel like the words were a lie. They’re not. I know that same joy was real when I wrote them and that those emotions, just like any, are visitors. Yes, I will have that joy again. I will have joy, as well as sadness, frustration, contentment, relief, stress, or wonder again. Visitors I still welcome.
All of this is to say, the poem I’m sharing today isn’t new, or even close to what I’m feeling right now, but I’m sharing this because I want to remember the emotion was real it was when I wrote it. I want to remember it’ll happen again, even though I can take my time with what I’m feeling now. No feeling is final.
-
I know that kind of alone; the house so quiet and still that you stand in front of the window and try to make the yellow light of morning feel like soft hands against your face. I know—you notice every drip from the kitchen sink. A car door slammed shut on the other side of the street. I’ve crooned until the moon rose, left my chair to run barefoot in the grass, bashed a frying pan against the metal teeth of the stove range just to shake off the shock. I remind myself there is nothing I’m waiting for. The day is a clean white canvas. This silence is no terrible thing. Look at how the house loves to listen. I’m not alone. Here, watch how the stars wink back at me. The potted plants on the mantle and how they move so slow to wrap their arms around each other. Look at how the sun returns like a friend, to sit in wait by the window; how well I’ve come to know its touch. How full, how alive this house can be, once I adjust my eyes.
-
with love,
schuyler (sky-ler)
venmo: schuylerpeck