isingthewind

[isingthewind]

Prehumously

sometimes I imagine

my words, the ones written here,

In this tiny digital diary,

arranged on real paper.

black ink on sepia pages.

someone has taken them

published them posthumously

always always when I imagine this,

I am dead.

why is it that I never fantasize

of arranging them myself?

prehumously.

I am always dead. And long-dead too.

sometimes you are reading them. sometimes it was you who lovingly chose

the entries worthy of print. An exercise in mourning.

more often, it's a distant relative

born, perhaps, long after I have gone.

she digs through the digital folder

that sums up my life, passed along to her from some aunt or another, a long line of women who didn't quite have the heart to click

delete.

she reads the words and even though 50,70, 100 years stretch between our youths, something strikes a cord.

why do I wait for her?

why do I so fear

to be seen while I'm alive?

[isingthewind]

Have I told you this before?

We've talked about how every woman we know has a fear of going mad, of completely losing herself- just like we read in that quote on Tumblr.

Sorry if I've told you this before

but, I've been thinking how there's also a comfort in the option. We've all got it there, in the back of our minds. One day, if we like (or, maybe, could be, against our will) , we'll give in. Go mad. Surrender.

Yes I'm sure I must have told you this before.

It's a fear, absolutely. But it's also a freedom.

"she went mad with the grief" they'll say with a knowing nod. Regrettable but, forgivable.

It's permission. A fail safe.

And maybe I've said this before but.. we can't know. Not really. But, I think, that a lot of us think, that madness isn't like the hotel California.

We can check in anytime we like. And we could also leave. We *could* if we really wanted. We are sure that we could.

But what if we're already there?

[isingthewind]

Do you ever feel as if once upon a time you had so very much to say but now summer's turned to fall - your favorite season - and you haven't got a single thought in your soft and precious brain?

No?

Yeah, no, that's cool. Me neither.

[isingthewind]

"Yet mad I am not...and very surely do I not dream."

-Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat

[isingthewind]

(often, echoes are enough)

I wrote a poem the other night. I paused while you went to refill our waters and quickly wrote it out. I really felt like it was going to capture that feeling and preserve it forever. I saw myself reading it as an old woman and being transported wholly back into that moment . (I guess I'm not so terribly old just yet, maybe that could happen one day)

But the next day I read the words again and even though I knew exactly how I was feeling in that moment, my words hadn't captured it. It was all echoes. That's the horrible, wonderful thing about existing though, innit? Except for this moment right now, everything is echoes.

[isingthewind]

Just

That sex just put a poem in me.

I feel it there now, just behind my rib cage.

But just this minute, it's all feeling and no form.

So it's enough, just for now,

to simply just acknowledge it.

[isingthewind]

I don't often miss our house on Churchill Avenue;

it was our home but it had a deadline from the start.

A liminal space, with a proverbial axe ever present over our heads.

There was so much joy. Yes. So much joy but every piece of it tinged with the knowing that it could not last.

In some ways, this amplified our joy. Slathered on a layer of gratitude with a side of pre-nostalgia. We had the gift of knowing we were in the good old days before we left them.

Anyway, I'm getting distracted.

What I mean to say is I don't often miss our house on Churchill Ave but when I do it's almost always at sunrise. The deep pinks and soft purples bleeding into cold winter blue and a sun so gloriously golden orange it actually, truly, not even metaphorically, I'm telling you, truly took your breath away. We just don't see a sunrise like that anymore. And it was years ago now so any pictures I have don't come anywhere near what I know we saw (see above).

But we did see them, once.

[isingthewind]

my everyday, in another lifetime

[isingthewind]

I envy anyone who lived and died before the internet if only for the fact that they could exist ephemerally. No risk of going viral. No evidence of their twisted tongues. They could just *be* in a way I think we'll never feel again.

“My fear of being real, of being seen, paralyzes me into silence. I crave the touch and the connection, but I’m not always brave enough to open my hand and reach out. This is the great challenge: to be seen, accepted, and loved, I must first reveal, offer, and surrender.”

Anna White, Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith

[isingthewind]

a thick and sticky night on the eve of August

i ache, as always, for autumn spent by fire side

and always always always

i sit within reach of you

Marcel Rieder - Songeuse (1932)

[isingthewind]

Victor Gilbert (French, 1847-1935)

Élégante à la rose

[isingthewind]

I hope you sometimes catch a glimmer

of confidence and pride

when you read a thing you've written

and see your soul ablaze outside.

I hope you sit there in that moment

just you yourself and you.

And hold those feelings, however briefly

and know them to be true.

[isingthewind]

Early September, 2018

Memory is a fascinating thing.

I can picture the cafe in Florence where we overheard those British people groan that this "wasn't like the ham [they] had back home."

I can see it so perfectly in my mind. But if you asked me to describe it to you? I'm not sure I really could. At most I could tell you that the chairs are white and you are wearing that Lacoste polo that you bought at Value Village in 2011 and you're resting your chin in your hands in that way that you do, with a crooked little knowing smile, and that brand new wedding ring shines so nicely beside your sun kissed skin. But the rest?

What was I wearing? Beats me. What did we eat? I couldn't say. What did we talk about? Your guess is as good as mine.

But this I do know, I will visit us there, as we are visiting now. Time and time and time again.

[isingthewind]

if I were to pave a road to the great beyond , to the life to come , to where we go when time bleeds together and the tale is done, I'd paint it just like Georges and his road at dawn and those trees all freshness, life and hope.

“Qui n’a pas vu la route, à l’aube entre deux rangées d’arbres, toute fraîche, toute vivante, ne sait pas ce que c’est que l’espérance.”

— Georges Bernanos

[isingthewind]

Artist: Harald Slott-Møller (Danish, 1864–1937)

Title: Midsummer evening

Medium: oil on canvas

To the women who hold the core of me

tenderly in their hands.

To these women who need no plans, no schedule, no activities.

Women with whom I can simply: be.

To my women, secure in our love; we needn't boast.

To you, my best, my soul, I toast.

To you, who, when I share

these tender feelings; lay them bare

You proclaim

'I want to frame'

these words

make me feel

as a dodo bird - precious and rare.

[isingthewind]

Actual footage of the seat of my soul

@guinevere.von.sneenden https://www.instagram.com/p/CuSWJI0rk9s/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

[isingthewind]

the want for autumn that fills the soul on a sticky July evening

“So often, a visit to a bookshop has cheered me, and reminded me that there are good things in the world.”

Vincent van Gogh

Instagram: @solitudeismyeuphoria