"Weep and Call It Singing"
An Onion Story
It was 9pm. I was pulling out of Bianca’s subdivision. Still reeling on a night of cinnamon pizza and Top Gun and the kind of laughter that butterflies your lungs and leaves you gasping for air. A smile spread across my cheeks as I re-opened the sunroof and set my Spotify playlist to shuffle. A cool gust of black breeze brushed my shoulders. And at a stop sign, I paused to gaze up at the sky. I turned left onto Greenhills Road. And cranked the music up and rolled down the windows all the way. I wanted to taste the night and the freedom hanging on the tips of its wings.
I drove home and something happened. I let something happen to me. I let myself be taken by it. The atmosphere, the quality of the air, the resonance of an open E chord playing through my hair, the lyrics lapping at the cheap seats of my eyelids. I came home, and I put on sexy pajamas. And I threw a writing robe over my shoulders, and I wrote this. Instead of going to sleep, I let the night take me somewhere else. I opened my teal hardback catchall and set to work, capturing.
“Call It Dreaming”
I am alone in my car. It is a sacred act. Driving at night. The veil between worlds is thin. And hidden treasures are allowed to seep across membranes of The Unseen and pour forth like lapping lakes onto denimed thighs.
Leaving a game night with friends where I got to laugh wildly and make inappropriate remarks and try to join two worlds together - my vintage world of Wes Anderson movies and mixed tapes and Limewired stolen MP3s and sharpied CDs for players that no longer exist. With the world of Taylor Swift and Anime and Tok Tok conspiracy theories about cheese caves hidden in Kansas City protected by the government.
Closer to home, I pass the roundabout where the two spotted fawns are always grazing, and I look up again at the stars and lick the twisted strands of gray hair that whip into my mouth. And “Iron And Wine” picks up. And I can’t stop the wave anymore. And I let myself weep.
I weep for the girl I was and the life I am losing. I weep for the painful contractions of giving birth. The pain of being reborn. The wonder of creation. I grip the steering wheel and release the reigns of my emotions. Let the slipstream roll forth into my lap.
“We can weep and call it singing”
Sam Ervin Beam pleads between strums. I weep and a piece of me dissolves into the song. The tones of guitar that lick me back to life. The licks of rain that grow the flowers of my heart up from desert ground. The lick of tongue between my legs and across my chest that awaken stolen parts of me. The lick of life that strings the sound back into my soul. And resonates out into the night air. And I let it. I let myself be devoured by it. Tasted. Savored. Every last shred. I hold back nothing. And resolve to feel everything. I weep and find my driveway and close the moon roof. I don’t want to wake the neighbors with my midnight howls. I rustle my dog's ears at the top of the stairs, her tail wagging. An empty space where a second tail used to be. And I weep with her some more.
I turn the knob and unstick the weathered back door. And the four of us file like shadow soldiers into the night. An inky shade of becoming. We file out into blackness, four. I gaze up at the winking stars and let go of making sense. I let myself fall to the earth. My knees follow my shins. My thighs fold atop the heap. My chest coils over my thighs. My forearms stretch into cool damp moon-soaked grass. My fingers interlace with her rubbery blades. I bring the fists of her hair together in my palms and am at once holding hands with my Mother. I let myself be held by the night, by the tang of brittle earth dusting my nostrils clear. I let my sensations be percolated by sounds and feels that fill the hollow places within me with their beautiful nonsense. I give myself up to the forces that hold me and guide my every move when I am awake and aware enough to remove my blocks from them.
My children are gone. I am free. For the first time ever. I am free. I let myself fall into the freedom. Face in the earthworm duplexes. I let the caring and the shoulds fall away like old skin. My dog comes to sniff out my odd behavior for signs of life and I hug her by the neck and we weep for our fallen brother. Tears slaking ground he used to prance over.
After a time, I gather up my bones and we leave the night to its sounds and come down to the basement. She jumps on the couch, while I adorn my figure with a deep blue agate pendant necklace that reaches down to my belly button. I throw on my robe. Because this is how I choose to present myself to Creation. This is what, when I wear it, makes me feels most like myself.
I am not putting anyone else to sleep tonight. I am not exhausted from tending to the needs of others. And I have the energy to pick up my guitar at 10 pm and play. And so I do. This time of night is mostly forbidden. But tonight, I get to play rockstar. I brush my teeth and say thank you to the sky and moon. The crow. The song. The friends. The lovers. The family. For making me so deeply and inconsolably happy. For offering me this sweet reprieve in a season of impossible. For affording me so much - a time to recover and remember - a mother who got sober five years ago but never got to take the time off to go to rehab. This is my rehab. Only better. I take sea salt baths and clear my cling-ons. I lay on the ground and breathe for 30 minutes and let my thoughts be my thoughts and practice non-judgement. I light a candle to honor my boundaries and my dreams that come from keeping them. I rejoice in the company of myself. And recall a time when I would have done anything to avoid it.
In a world that has told me in equal measures that I am both too much and not enough. This night I get to wholly rebel against it. And revel in myself. And it becomes a ceremony. And I weep in the majesty and magic of where I am. And how hard it was to get here. And how I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Me. This. All of it. The too much. The not enough. The swirl of paradox that swells the potion.
And here is her battle cry.
