lately, almost.

toward the thaw

through the cold grey months, my own words hovered softly in my head: like ten fingers lifting at once from ivory keys, snow falling on wet pavement: dreaming is an almost-sound.

now i try to remind myself, there are warm almost-sounds, too.

the same scant millimeters that pulse around the skin are also thrumming just above the earth as late afternoon shifts into evening. hot sand as it begins to settle. or the almost-words that escape your almost-sleeping lips (lips as sleepy toddlers, insisting they are wide awake, rambling incoherently until they fall suddenly silent), or maybe they are more like almost-moans, almost-prayers, all ahmms and hmms under your breath. and oh! the dawn! a thunderous quiet, a fanfare of light that would be a symphony if only we could turn to the right frequency. and the moments before, when dawn hovers and paces like the cold does outside the old glass doors, a tangible almost-arrival, simmering just below the horizon.

maybe all sensations have an almost-sound to me? an almost-real aural apparition, just out of the range of hearing, a whisper of a vibration at the heart of the ear drum, a suggestion, a wink toward “sound.”

maybe it’s that everything is almost, lately. it’s why i haven’t visited you here in awhile. i spend a lot of time almost-writing. (skating on the surface. dancing on the tip of the iceberg, averting my eyes from the depths with a little shiver…)

//

at this cafe where i’m reading and sipping coffee and strongly considering something-that-looks-like-writing (sharpening my pencil, just in case), there’s going to be a test of the fire alarm system, between 3 and 3:15pm.

there are signs everywhere alerting us to this eventuality, and a manager with kind eyes even comes ‘round to each table a few minutes before with a reminder and permission to take our glassware outside if needed.

so at three minutes to 3pm, when the flashing lights begin, no one is surprised. in fact the sirens are blaring now and no one even stops chatting or sipping cocktails or eating mezze or taking photos of it from twenty inches above. from my corner table it’s a striking cinematic scene, utterly bizarre — and frankly, at this moment in history, a little on the nose.

//

this morning i was deciding between burying myself in work and burying myself in the blankets, but Audre Lorde told me no, there would be none of that. she does that sometimes, pokes through the ether and whispers whenever i need to hear it again, whenever i forget to be alive:

“I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes — everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!"

take yourself for a walk, she says, sit where it’s nice. bring a book and sharpen your pencil and write yourself back to life. breathe yourself back open, do what you’re here to do (because life is short, and because life is long). and see? now i’ve written my pencil all the way back down to softness. no fire, just yet, but the thaw is beginning.

almost warm.

almost spring.

//

until then, sending love from here.
💚mischa