These are some drafts that I rarely revisit or tweak. They all felt complete. 📝
ONE
Six years ago, me and three of my girlfriends did yoga on my deck. We each set up our phones at the top of our mats and pressed play. It was the final class from a thirty-day challenge I was doing mostly by myself, yet when I invited the girls to join me for the (unguided / music-only) last class, they all agreed—despite it not being a super ideal experience.
I wrote about this moment and hit publish, and I don’t remember the piece at all. I can’t find it now because my impulsive, easily embarrassed nature deletes, discards, and purges things like it’s nobody’s business. I don’t think I did a great job writing about it. I wrote from a sloppy lens. One that didn’t see it for what it was: the beautiful nature of this friend group showing up for one another.
We don’t brunch every Saturday, and we don’t have plots that merge often, but we have a great love story.
I sat around a table with them last night, feeling deep affection— noticing how time hasn’t aged any of them. Or are my eyes just adjusting to how time has actually made them more beautiful?
If I could rewrite that post, all I know is I’d write it from the perspective of each individual girl.
TWO
Anna is a tall, thin Italian woman who works three suites away from our branch. We run into each other in the bathroom frequently. I’m often washing my hands when I hear the thump-thump-thump of her blocky heels rushing down the hallway. When she’s in the stall, she sighs—or sometimes says to no one in particular: “Oh well.” Her accent is thick and lovely.
Anna says, “Hey girl.” “Hey girl!” “Hey girl.” I guess because she doesn’t know my name, but that’s fine with me. One day while we were both in front of the mirror, I said, “How’ve you been?”
She answered, “I’m old. I’m getting old. Everything hurts.”
I said, “You look amazing, Anna.”
She said, “What?!” and looked at herself in the mirror, swished her long black hair, then back at me: “Thanks, girl. Coming from those blue eyes? Wow.”
I think we both lit each other up that day.
THREE
I remember a night in late July, falling asleep buzzing harder than any haptic effect. Or did I sleep at all? Eventually I let the weight of wanting lull me.
When those vibrations stop, what replaces them? Softness or static?
FOUR
From the carpet of a hotel room in a Courtyard Marriott in Raleigh, North Carolina, I called three different clients with a shaking body, scratchy voice, and a stuffy nose and told them I had Covid. We’d be canceling all of our trips. We had three flights left, but instead, we’d be driving ten hours home.
I never felt so sad in a hotel room, or so alone. I remember staring at the way the curtains floated over the air conditioner. I was mad at them for being indifferent and annoying. Mad at how badly my body hurt. Mad at my phone, for no one being available to bother at 3 a.m. with my woes. Mad at the sleep meditations that were doing absolutely nothing to settle me. Mad at the lack of space to pace out my frustration.
The ten-hour drive with my boss was something else entirely. I remember getting in the rental with my mask on and his face. He looked at me and said, “Take that off. I’m getting this no matter what.”
Snot was in endless supply. My upper lip was raw and frankly, I looked disgusting. My body ached. I left the seat warmers on their highest setting the entire time. I shivered. And yet, I performed for this man—being willing to not put other people in harm’s way by renting a Toyota Highlander and driving me home. I sang along to songs from his sometimes surprising, sometimes predictable playlist: Melissa Etheridge’s “Come To My Window” or Bruce Hornsby’s “Mandolin Rain” would precede Janet Jackson’s “When I Think Of You,” only to shift into an accidental Apple Music purchase of a person who isn’t Kelly Clarkson singing the worst rendition of “Mr. Know It All” (I asked him to change it, please). Still, I’d sing and feign cheerfulness not just for him, but for me too.
And truly? Those ten hours flew by.
I think mostly because I was in a deranged fog.
By the time we got to Jacksonville, it was obvious he was getting sick.
He tested positive the next day.
(Daily Writing 025)
Thoughts?