my honeybee,
how are you? tell me about the last thing to make you laugh.
lately, I’ve been thinking about the scrapbooks we carry with us, collages of those we love and have known a long time. somewhere, someone carries you as an old memory, a version suspended in the chapter you met them in. over a holiday, maybe it becomes more obvious your grandfather could recite your book’s every page. I hold with me faded photo memories of my closest friends, my siblings; any person I’ve ever loved. what a remarkable thing, to carry the many phases and stories of them I've met and know that I’m carried back. and of course, depending on how long our paths have intertwined, the more I laugh to myself at the magic, mortifying ordeal of it all, to be known in all the selves I’ve arrived in.
if, at the home my parents live in now, there is a box in the basement with my name scrawled across, I’m sure a thick stack of dinosaur fact cards is tucked in among its contents. my dad could tell you of the saturdays spent driving to the ice rink, my seven-year-old self listing off jurassic creatures in the back seat. “Camptosaurus,” I’d make eye contact with him from the rear-view mirror. “the name is Greek. you have to guess what it means, Dad.” “Greek, eh?” he’d pretend to mull it over, “I’m thinking that translates to ‘spotted lizard.’” pfft, followed by my hearty laugh, “no. it means ‘flexible lizard.’ duh.” I’ve been a dinosaur aficionado, a blue-ribbon equestrian, a quiet rebel; a gem state hippie.
while I’m trying not to dig too far into what metaphor carbon dating lends, I can imagine the mountains made of those I love, how the base stands proudly in such different soil than the summit. who they are now, new and fresh to the world, with all their younger selves trailing behind them, holding them up to stand taller. how none of those past stages were wrong, only pulling them closer to who they are now. I’m sure if I look hard enough, I could find a video of my youngest sibling that’s lost to the golden years of point-and-shoot cameras, their smile a gapped garden fence, loose baby teeth shimmying in the inhale of every ballad; a wide hairbrush the perfect stand-in microphone. their love of singing for any willing audience bled from one song into the other without a beat in between. last week, my phone buzzed with pictures of their dorm room; nerves and questions and concerns about moving day on their first day of college. their full smile. their love of singing never lost, but now split between soil studies and steamed milk at the coffee shop.
who have you been? will you tell me all the hats you’ve worn? where do you keep the pictures from your childhood? could I hold them in my hands? could I ask about the details? I want to hear about your favorite memory from the summers. I have a sneaking suspicion you’ve always had such honest eyes. did you believe you gained mermaid flippers with every visit to the pool? did you have a Halloween costume you were most proud of?
oh, how held you seem. how cherished you’ve been. what a precious thing we’re given here, to be loved in all the chapters our lives have penned.
with love,
schuyler (sky-ler)
venmo: schuylerpeck