On the coast, the fog crashes through like kaiju, disappearing trees and buildings with a single blow. Their dense and guttural cries inspire my joints to take their place in the chorus, creaking and groaning, too. My body, my city, are monster movies before the destruction, during the destruction, after the destruction. We call the after the rebuilding, and the before the good ol days. My body, my city, is the monster, is the rebuild, is the goodest of the oldest days.
The words I spelled wrong before the help of technology: coast, disappearing, guttural, chorus, creaking.
This is to say, the last few days have been the part of healing dance where you take two steps back. I'm proud of myself because I've managed it better than usual, despite insurrection and disease and winter, and everything that else that battles down my bones just by existing in the world.
I ask my roommate what he thinks of using seashells to decorate outside our place, except the word figureskates out of my wintered mouth as cauliflower. I am insistent. He is confused.
And now I wonder how my brain linked those two at all. My prior experience with word switches have always had a sort of logic to the hiccup. Milestone and yardstick follow the same formula. Palm tree and pineapple have similar sounds. A loaf and a baby are things that must bake till they're ready.
But what do cauliflower and seashells have in common enough that my brain thought one word might do for the other in a pinch?
That's what this part of healing is.
A pinch.
The pinch under my eyes has officially become a wrinkle and I love my aging face, I love the direction it is headed. I know, I know, I'm supposed to like the good ol days, but these cheekbones were sharpened on prison bars. This jaw has been flattened and stretched by all the prayers it has uttered. This skin is pinched in healing, grieving, and loving, because it has been softened enough to fold.
I could do without the greys in my hair, but not because I don't appreciate finally finally growing my own glitter, but because mine stand straight up in the air. I'm not sure what to do about that, and I really don't know what the world is going to do about it, because it seems to me to be a sort of omen. Grey-haired Rara is about to be quite loud: even her hair stands up and shouts.
Right now, I am sitting down, quiet as I've been all day. All week. All these last quarantined months. There is bread in the oven, because I am a better baker when my brain is having an off day. I don't remember what I'm doing enough to fuss, to peek into the oven, to poke the risen bread just to see. Instead, I can give it the gift of stillness and time.
Today, I give myself these gifts, too.
These things, and bread.
What gifts will you give yourself today?
