Voice in the Void

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This wasn’t supposed to be some artsy photoshoot. It actually lacked any intentionality. I don’t even know what a lip mask is for, really—it just came in my FabFitFun box, and I put it on obediently so that, you know, beauty could happen.

It is coincidental at best that I am wearing a lip mask that presents me from speaking while I have been shaking out my bedsheets, trying to find where my voice is hiding. I’ve been thumbing through the pages of literature, like Peter Pan looking for his shadow. Scrolling online to see if my voice is lurking on a like button.

It isn’t.

Hibernating

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This morning, as soon as our nanny arrived to take Hudson, I made my Friday march down to my basement office, wadded up a hoodie for a pillow, and decided to sleep on the floor.x No, I wasn’t booting up my computer and reviewing my incoming emails, but I felt like, through the absence of actual work, my proximity to work might be enough. Maeby, who is unaccustomed to me being quite so literally on her level, responded gamely—gamely in the sense that she flopped right beside me so her whiskers could twitch against my cheeks while we both tried to rest.

My Ship

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I have a time sensitive window in which to see a shooting star.

And the time constraint is: how long does it take for my melatonin to kick in.

I’m wrapped in an old rescued creature comfort—the M&M blanket I stole from my sister, with bare feet on November pavement, and I’m looking up through the clouds in vain hope.

The Boiling Point

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Hudson woke up with a 104 degree fever this morning. It doesn’t need a metaphor, it is what it is. Hot, unblemished baby skin.
But for me, every degree above 98 felt like a degree above boiling point. I was boiling water, splashing through the lid of a pot and landing with a sizzle-crash onto the stove.

3AM Jeremy

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I just watched my husband lift his dying father up the stairs.

It wasn’t a moment I planned for in life. Or maybe I planned for it at age 51 instead of 31, but I don’t think so. Fathers die only in abstraction. They aren’t supposed to die for real.

I haven’t planned for this moment, but whether any of us likes it or not, the moment is here.

This Is Your Hug.

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I had an unexpectedly harrowing experience this evening.

Hudson was squeezing my wrist tenderly, which he sometimes does when I read him a story. Tonight’s story was a new one, a quaint little book about a small child narrating to what seems to be another small child about how to survive in the city. It’s a cute book, but sometimes the child’s advice seems questionable: Yes, laundry vents do often smell good, but is it advisable to nap underneath one? And should you really just let yourself into the neighbor’s home to listen to her practice the piano?