Glimpses
::6:: the first unisom, the broadcasted dream body, the accepted sweetness
Hello from the rising Buck Moon (above), and the five feasting bucks in the lush septic field (below). We offer our second set of glimpses written and collected through the metaphorical seeing-stone As Above, So Below.
Our entries appear below our symbols.
With love,
Jenni, Gabby, and Marie
Today I took my first unisom and remembered pleasure. I woke and daydreamed about taking 15 of them, alone at an empty beach house and waking up at whatever hours of the world and going into the ocean chanting the chalisa and going back to sleep and waking only to paint or write or come or drink coffee and swim again and sing the chalisa and fall asleep again and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep until I am so filled with rest and pleasure and god that I could finally crave again a single sharp edge of the world. Could slice myself up a bit and find wonder and thrill and be like my daughter, who shouts WHERES MY BLOOD and be delighted that it’s in my body! I am in a body! And remember the little cute joke of being flesh. And its dharma and its karma and its desperate Bhakti tears and on and on and if I ever forgot again, the doors to the beach house would be open with a little glass of water and a bottle of unisom waiting on the daybed for me.
Parenthood started and lingered in such intense loneliness for me. We lived, Eu and I, in a displaced ebb and flow of babydom. The eating, sleeping, feeling, walking, thinking, screaming, pooping, feeding, tumult of us. These long stretches of hours to occupy and exist without witness, without feedback or conversation. A monologue of being. J would come home, exhausted and burnt out from holding his brain in linear time. He slept and existed half in our displaced time zone. We met in burn out, passing in opposite trajectories on many days. A clocking in and out of shifts.
Sitting on our couch now, house dark, sound machines blanketing my sleeping loves. I am dripping with connection. Filled up by words shared in these Glimpses. Basking in this conversation, dialogue of parenthood and personhood. The fullness of it. I am full in it. This was my first space of connection here, the anchor back to self in displacement.
I now have to set aside intentional days to be just us together. Our community saturates and flavors mornings, afternoons, evenings. We are growing alongside other families, other parents, other people. So many voices and stories woven into our own, holding and building. This dream did not feel possible for so long. I end so many days thrumming and resonating with blips of beauty and reassurance and appreciation and challenge and deep gratitude.
I am about a month away from turning thirty-five. For some reason this reality is landsliding down on me. I’m not depressed about it per say, but in the depths of my feelings about it. Early thirties—the pandemic plus the blur of having two kids—felt still like late twenties. Thirty five smashes down upon the head and cracks the yolk of it all. I’ve never been uncomfortable with ageing or even the concept of death; often envisioned my golden stage as a crone. But something about thirty five is hard to swallow. Still young yet solidly grown enough to be past a bodily ripeness.
I’ve had two dreams this week about ~body image~! An issue I thought I’d worked with, healed and left far in the rearview mirror. In one dream, a scarred and stretched out tummy hung off my midriff. I was out somewhere very public and kept looking down to find myself in a cropped shirt with a belly hanging like loose jello as I paraded around for strangers to see. I was mortified by my nudity, by my alien body, and yet continued on. The next dream was of my tits. They were unintentionally on the news. I was shorter than the rest of the group I was with, and my tits were falling out of my bra, my areolas blinking red behind the newscaster reporting live as my picasso’d body was being broadcast for all to see. I woke up with a vague ick and a lot of confusion. I don’t feel like I hate my body anymore. I feel grateful towards it, and spend a lot of time admiring its strength. Of course, I am aware of how my body has changed, in the way that most women do morph with age, and as we enter in and out of fertility portals. I usually note all this with a hint of humor, a shrug and a wink to myself in the mirror. Jokes about tit lifts or gym memberships. But there is something my subconscious is clearly wanting to flag here. Perhaps it is simply a need for less humor. And more love.
We go on a hike and Eu out of nowhere says, my favorite part of my life is that I was born and am truly alive and that you are my mama. My first thought is, did someone coach you to say this? Then I think, fuck just accept the sweetness.
I grate boiled potatoes to make soft pillows of gnocchi dough, topped with bursting tomato sauce. I broil the leftover potato skins with salt and garlic and we eat them for an appetizer. I make warm crusty bread spread thick with butter. I make the thickest, chewiest homemade udon noodles the size of thumbs, thicker than any noodle you have ever seen, because that’s how I wanted them as a child. The recipe says to knead the dough with your feet, so my daughter and I wrap the dough in plastic wrap, drape it with a towel, and take turns dancing into the dough. I make mini homemade custard pies, soft and warm straight from the oven, dusted with powdered sugar that tastes like the Fair. I make homemade pierogis stuffed with fatty pork belly and cheddar grated from the block and carmelized vedalia onions and potatoes. I make mochi stuffed with chilled custard, cold and dusted with powdered sugar.
I do not write, I do not pray, I do not get to the laundry. I conquer Chewiness, and think about my moods.
On a walk, Lilac starts out bold, heavy tread, low gravity, then turns. Carry you he says to J. A few feet later he leans forward over J’s head, his body tilting toward the ground, down, down, get down he says. J twists him down off his shoulders. This up and down continues. Eu leads the way, finding one secret path after another that we must explore. Lilac emerges through a bush behind J and says one more time. Shoulder ride, one more time. His syllables slurred into something that breaks me open, gushing. Again I say, say it again: one more time.
Lift the hag stone, share a glimpse with us.