Dear—

I ask for silence / though it’s late, though it’s night, / and you are not able.
Sing as if nothing were wrong.
Nothing is wrong.
Alejandra Pizarnik

This one is to little me, teenage me, twenty-five-year-old me, and also me last week. We are lying here on our belly, arms splayed, looking out at the expanse. The tiles on the floor are blue and beautiful. Faces painted on each one. They are cool upon the cheek. Like a river running us smooth. Things did not turn out the way we wanted, and then our heart stopped wanting. I think that was the mistake.

A cousin asked me if I was out in the backyard again, digging up bones like some sort of witch. First thought I had was, Which response won’t get me persecuted? Second thought was, Bones? Digging? It wasn’t until the thirteenth thought that I got anywhere close to the truth. Witch is the wrong word. It’s more like tenor sax. Have you heard one recent? The way the brass goes ahead and scoops up all the things that you thought should make sense by now but don’t and turns them into an autumn night out by the lake in the woods. The crickets have gone sideways with their music, and you’re just trying to keep up. You’re standing out there by the shore, and your heart is broken, and you think that maybe it wouldn’t be if somebody was standing out there with you. I don’t know, maybe that’s true. But also, maybe it’s not.

Cousin, I wish we hadn’t burned those women. I wish we hadn’t wanted to.

If you cut me open, tore me limb from limb, you’d find that I’m mostly just tenor sax in here. And also a bit of my grandfather on my father’s side playing the harmonica in a deli with two strangers he just met. And also my momma’s momma watching her soap operas. And also somebody I don’t know about playing the banjo. There are so many faces here. Painted in blue.

Cousin, if we had cut those women open, peered inside their hearts, what kind of music do you think we would’ve found? I wish that had mattered.

I sound like my child, don’t I? I often feel like her. A heart can be a heavy thing to have. It will love people even when it shouldn’t, even when they’ve hurt you, even when they’ve left you standing on some shore.

Listen, I know. We really wanted them out there with us, and that’s not what happened, and I think that that’s okay.

Sometimes, though, we fail to see that. Sometimes we fail to leave so that we can keep the heart open, and sometimes we fail to keep the heart open so that we can leave.

But y’all, those are just stories. We don’t always have to choose, and there are many other moves. And sometimes, because of those stories, we fail to see the truth. Maybe that it has nothing at all to do with us, that sometimes being left alone is just what happens in the act of someone else’s living. Or maybe that we are the ones keeping ourselves alone. Or maybe that we aren’t alone, that we never were, or that we want to be.

The word fail comes from the Latin fallere, meaning to trip, to stumble, to fall.

To keep the heart wanting, to keep it guiding, we have to have our failures just as big. We fell. Here we are on the floor again, and there is nothing to forgive.

Cousin, there are times to dig up bones, and then there are times to bury them. Times to get honest about what we failed to see. Times to lay to rest what happened. Just cuz something happened doesn’t mean it’s always happening.

While we’re down here, I think I’ll lay some of these old stories to rest. Bed them down slowly. Maybe to some light jazz. Kiss them gently too. Tender on the feet. Oh, and whisper some sweet nothings. Tell them all the truths they’ve been holding out to hear.

Key? Darling, there is none. Nothing that has to be found. Put that brass to better use.

Listen, every heart we know has broken. You don’t gotta wait on anybody, and you don’t gotta hate on anybody. Trust is something that’s built. Let the handiwork show. Healing is not the outcome of getting what you wanted. Healing is a room you make. Ours has tiled floors.

Listen, there is always another autumn, and if you need it, the crickets will be there. To sing you the long way home.

Life is always just around the corner. You don’t have to earn it. Look at all these faces down here on the floor with you. Listen to their blues. Pick up that tenor sax. Play as if you aren’t alone. You aren’t alone.

Sincerely Me, Standing Out on the Shore with You

The sky is falling. I am learning to live with it. John Lurie, watercolor and gouache, 2016.