In a desperate attempt to remember to put the oats into the jar for my overnight oats breakfast, I have placed it on the desk in front of me. It is 12:35am and I have unloaded, loaded, and started the dishwasher. I have danced in the kitchen (quietly because please no oh god don’t wake up the five-year-old), I wiped the counters, I replaced the kitchen towel with a fresh one.
I washed and dried the towels today and I actually folded all of them without necessarily meaning to, because I started doing it as a bit of a fidget cheat during a conversation I was in, and I ended up finishing them because there’s no good place to pile unfolded towels (I am more worried about Things Falling Over than I am about Not Having To Fold Towels Right Away). And then I brought them upstairs, which is a thing that for several years was almost impossible: bring up a laundry basket? Of towels?? By myself??? ON THE STAIRS???? Anyway, I can do that now, and that makes me just a little bit happier every time I notice that I don’t need to ask for help to take the laundry down or or to bring any laundry back up when it is clean.
Now my day is all wrapped up and done. I helped with carework after I had coffee, and after it wasn’t my turn any more (this is the future communists want), I managed to eat dinner AND I remembered to take my before-food meds before fully eating the entire french bread pizza. BABY STEPS TO FOUR O’CLOCK.
Then the laundry and headphone volume all the way up on my music. Later after I cleaned the kitchen, I made sure the sliding door was locked. I drew the curtains. I blew out the candle. It’s very cozy, really, to put the second floor to bed at night. I’m saying goodnight to the spirits of the house with each little thing I do, even if it’s just a clean table top or a straightened rug. I can’t do nurturing at-home labor all day long, but I can do it for a period of time a few times during the day, or perhaps I can only do that every couple of weeks, but it still counts.
briefly for a few moments in space-time
Briefly for a few moments in space-time,
I think of something important.
I forget it, maybe. Or I keep it in my mind
and turn it over and over like a rock
tumbling toward its shine.
Briefly,
I feel that I know exactly what to say.
I feel that I know precisely what I know and what I don’t.
Usually,
the epiphany eventually slips from my conscious mind
like a thread of silk,
strong then ephemeral then gone.
Sometimes,
for a moment of space-time,
I see a flash of the future and I know —
I KNOW —
that I’m on the right path.
In between everything happening all at once,
nothing happens at all,
but if you have anxiety that actually feels worse,
you know?
Often,
I recite the Litany Against Fear when my anxiety gets intense.
I’ll gently rock back and forth with my eyes closed and say
the words that I have memorized,
over and over again, until I feel like I can breathe without panicking.
Briefly, for a few moments in space-time,
here I am and
here you are, and
(you and me and you and your friend Steve)
you must remember that the universe is made of atoms that are
so impossibly close together.
They are never alone.
Their natural state is cooperation,
communication,
awareness,
creation,
destruction.
The only-ness we have
is each other,
moons in orbit around the same planet,
clouds of stardust showing off for faraway telescopes,
rocks older than the earth spinning through space,
held sometimes by gravity
when a thing so very much bigger
draws them near.
Today,
I learned that there is residual glow everywhere in the universe
from all the billions of galaxies,
except for the places empty of Things.
So I think that the truth I am savoring
is that the light means there is someone else there
or at least, something else there
no matter when we are
or where we are.
We are
never
alone.
Briefly,
I see you.
If I let you see my Youtube Shorts watch history you would be laughing so hard at how many goofy-ass short clips I’ve seen of Stray Kids being ridiculous together.
It brings me joy and I am leaning into that as hard and as gently as I can. Joy is healing. Joy belongs to me even when I forget about it when things are so, so hard. If I find a crumb of joy I am going to notice it, and savor it, and hope I remember the silken thread of it long enough to write it down somewhere.
I am doing my best to remember the overnight oats after I press publish and before I go to bed. For tomorrow’s needing-breakfast me, I should try to be thoughtful.
everything that we are will always go on.
nothing that we are will ever truly disappear,
until the universe itself is no more
than someone else’s memory.
I hope that a moment of joy appears around you and that you notice it and are able to see it briefly and know that everything is connected so my joy is your joy is our joy is collective joy is freedom is love is community is laughter is warmth is the meaning of life.
xox,
Nix
featured image is a photo by NASA on Unsplash
