At Home with My Magic
Blue Skies in July
I got my driver's license (at 34) mostly to give my niece rides to and from daycare. Then Covid happened she didn't go to daycare and I didn't drive. Then Vaccines happened and she went to daycare and I drove.
A lot.
Ping ponging around the north east corner of the United States, floating like a vaccinated Mary Poppins to where my magic was needed most.
My magic.
My ability to hold space. To feel into what is most needed, and quietly carry it out. To loudly laugh and stir up a room, injecting stories and nostalgia and moments that remind us it’s ok to be silly. It’s ok to be, and it’s necessary to be silly.
My magic.
The alchemy that comes in ovens and on stove tops and in pouring hot water over tea leaves. Pulling songs out of the air and getting people to join in. The understanding that in order to have connected conversation, there must be neutral common space. Sometimes that means rearranging the furniture and combing out cobwebs and finding diplomacy in a room where it had been banned - often unknowingly - for quite some time.
My magic, the deep capacity to create containers that fill up and empty out and Mary Poppins style contain whatever it is that is most required. Here, you need a lamp to see things better by? This carpet bag can accommodate.
In Vermont, I fetched a shirt from my car and borrowed pants from a friend after stripping down (nearly) naked in her mudroom. We got caught in an unexpected rainstorm and decided not to make a run for it, because once you reach the saturation point, how fast you move doesn’t matter. My clothes tumbled in the drier and we took turns sharing the past year, uninterrupted paragraphs, and shared soothing sounds of deep understanding and validation.
In Maine, I dragged a dresser up the stairs of an old friend's new home. Alone. Because I am stubborn like that and think that it is a-ok to move large pieces of furniture up flights of stairs without assistance. I covered the dresser with photos I found in a box that had not yet been unpacked. I retouched the stairwell to cover the scratches I made...with the wrong color paint. (Despite being adjacent, “Living room” and “Stairwell'' are two separate buckets. Color matching is decidedly not my magic.)
I drove down to Pennsylvania to drive back up to New York, so my niece could turn 3 surrounded by family she'd only seen through screens for over a year. Late (!) that night I listened as my niece proclaimed to her mama, "He calls her sweetie!" A term of endearment my uncle calls my aunt that was not lost on their great-niece's small ears and big heart.
Early into the summer of 2021, I cried with my cousin's kid about the fact that yes, technically I'm homeless but maybe she didn't have to put it EXACTLY that way when her dad asked why I was staying in her mom's guest room. That I'm not mad she said it. That I'm crying 30% about the fact she (accurately!) called me homeless and 70% about the complicated curves my life has taken which, on paper don't always look great, but with proper context are supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
On a beautiful day in July, I left my aunt's in NY to drive to my cousin's in VT and she said, "We'll see you in August when you come back home. I mean here!" And I said, "No, home is good! Your house is home, too!" When Waze told me to drive up the opposite side I typically take along Lake Champlain, I enjoyed it.
The blue skies. My favorite cumulus clouds. Greens and blues and a road that unwinds, unfolds, unravels before me in ways unexpected but never unkind.
This summer, I lived out of a duffle bag. This fall, I moved into my very own apartment. At 37, I’m living alone in a space where only the art I choose hangs on the wall. Where only the food I crave fills the pantry. Where only the people I want to greet walk through the door. This summer, I was homeless, technically. (Jean Ralphio intonations for those who understand that reference.) This fall, I’m learning how to practice my magic just for me. To Mary Poppins myself.
This summer I discovered I was not homeless but home, more. Home here and there. Home in several states. With many memory keepers. With family that is blood, and family that is chosen. Driving to each of them, connecting myself to my magic, which is tucked in corners of roads all over.
Each home I visited, I found laughter. And hope. And connection. Each home I visited, I found grief. And anger. And frustration. These past few years have not been easy. We are invited to begin, again, begin for the first time, continue (always always! continue) our healing.
Words have weight. They can break us open and they can hold us together. They can act as soothing salve, or searing sword. Words can uplift and help us see more clearly. They can lay waste to something that we previously thought indestructible. And words, our words, spoken aloud and true, can be the thing that guides us home, even when we feel like we have none. Words can weave us closer to our magic, even when we feel like we have none.
With courage and conviction, we can claim them both within our own story. With our own clear voice, we can decide it is time to heal.
One of the ways that I can help facilitate healing for myself is to begin to share some words with you. And I hope that within the process of beginning to examine the hurts that have happened - to me, through me, not directly mine but the ones I feel though ripple effects of empathy and human consciousness - I’m able to find connection and community.
That we’re able to find catharsis. To grow a home that weaves across all states of being. To share ourselves, our magic, our healing.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. 💚
-A
