"One Mississippi" slowing & other musings

on my 30th birthday and the last day of 29.

August 12, 2024

I am sitting right now under the ink-black sky of a million answered prayers.

There is a meteor shower that happens once a year on the second Sunday in August. Perseids. A million or more stars are twinkling in the dusky, nighttime navy blue expanse of horizon and not all million will stay. What isn’t the stars will fall from the sky and we will call it magic or science. Or God.

I am at the edge of Martha’s Vineyard, with my love and our people. It is unfathomably dark aside from the flick of a lighter between friends, warm glances between the lovers and all of that heaven between us and the sea. This particular pitch of black deserves a capital B, is sticky like molasses, clings to the face and in the eyes like heavy smoke. And the only thing you can see, is up.

The meteors, they go so quickly. Nothing at all like the movies. It seems entirely inconsequential when they fly downward through the sky for a nanosecond and disappear into the void. Looks like God’s glitter. I felt like a spectator in His craft room, as He shakes the excess off of his shirt. I think He means for us to hold onto this moment a while, forever maybe. Some sparkles can’t be swept.

I am thirty tomorrow. And the weather is cold at the edge of the world. And my lululemon jacket dupe is thin and unforgiving. I am fully aware of each breeze as it brushes first at my breasts, and more fully into the round of my stomach, and sweeps under the beach chair to caress my hips. There is no warm for me here.

The wind slowed down to hold me. I slowed down too, to hold her back. One Mississippi. Two Missi-

A meteor falls quickly again from the blue-black and I am alive at the ends of my earth to witness her and kiss her goodbye. My love, also awestruck, puts his hand on my right shoulder and grazes his thumb across my fabric-covered tattoo. He doesn’t know it, or maybe he does, that this too is a reminder for slowing. “slow down and be with her” has been written in ink on my collarbone in “bitter” typewriter font for three years, a gift to myself on my 27th birthday. It is the reminder I keep for myself. And the wish I had for my childhood. And a danger notice for everyone else.

Do you think the meteors know they aren’t stars? One Mississippi.

I am seven years old on the playground of the old church on Harwell Road, now private school, and we are playing hide-and-seek. I am more forehead than torso, hair pulled back into a tight, high, short ponytail, and greased in vaseline from hairline to ankles. Khaki socks. Dark brown penny loafers. A sweet-corn-yellow cotton short-sleeve polo and a khaki skort. I am a walking eyes-closed toothy smile. Round cheeks sat up high like two ripe crabapples.

I had never hid nor sought, until that day. Who does an only child hide from but themselves? After three short-lived attempts at seeking in which I opened my eyes and no one had gotten very far, I was visibly flustered. And Ms. Antwih, the third grade teacher watching diligently from across the courtyard, approached hesitantly to be the first ever to tell me that I count too fast. She slowed my time blindness with two words. A combination of a changing number and a never-changing state.

Does a place know it’s not a time? Two Mississippi.

Twenty eight took. and took. and took. my sense of self. my relationship to cooking. and food. and drink. and sex. and love. and my corporate identity. and my creative identity. and my address. and all of my beautiful, beautiful words. and my voice for singing. and the last kind thing I felt about my body. and my goddamn confidence.

Twenty nine took. took different. took my ego. took my grief and made it plain. took my relationship with money. took my social security card. took my storage container with 15 years of memories. took three of my friendships. took me back to therapy. took me to my childhood again (over and over). took ME over and over. took what was gone and said good riddance. took what was left and declared itself lovable. took what’s still here and decided to find the joy. took it’s fucking time. took it’s fucking time.

took it’s fucking time. Twenty-nine Mississippi. Thirty.

The days didn’t change me. The year did.

Fear no longer motivates me, but comfort does. I enjoy who I’m becoming although she scares me shitless. She demands patience, not speed. She demands respect and doesn’t care if she commands it. She demands an artful approach and fewer deliverables. She demands forehead kisses, and vinyl records and pot roast once a month. She demands that I relearn my counting. And I have just begun to prove to her that I will survive slow numbers. I owe her more of them.

Twenty-nine gave. gave in spades. gave forgiveness. gave unconditional love. gave a love story for the books. gave so so many poems and handwritten notes. gave a happy home and a happy life with a happy man. gave community. gave another set of parents, and a brother. gave a nephew, a goddaughter, and a play cousin to my future children just months apart. gave sisterhood. gave neighbors. gave hundreds of pounds of clay for throwing. gave Maillard. gave learning everything again. gave way. gave way for roots. And on the last day, gave me a meteor shower so I could learn the difference between glowing dust… and stars.

…happy birthday to me. happy birthday to me. happy birthday sweet Courtnee. happy birthday to me…