Dear Somebody: Looking for the good.
Five things from this week that I'd like to remember
A year from now, here are five things from this week that I'd like to remember:
MONDAY
Two days after the tornado, N and I take a walk around our neighborhood. The pieces of it are everywhere: hundred-year-old red clay roofing tiles broken and littered across our backyard; downed electric wires strewn in the alley, their bodies snaking across crushed dumpsters and cement stairs. Broken windows glint where they lay—the light reaching and then snapping back from each jagged edge. The amount of glass is endless. It glitters on and on like the sea.
Look at all the missing roofs, I tell N. All of these people without homes.
But look at all the people helping, she tells me. I count three people on that roof. They will fix it.
My heart aches for the trees. 100, 150, 200 years old—now split at the torso, their beautiful rings exposed for us all to see. Our sidewalks are hidden, covered either by whatever’s left of their massive trunks, or hundreds of their smaller limbs. The arms bend this way or that, but still they reach up, up towards the sky. Roots and the earth that once held them have risen like mountains. Now they stand beside us. The sky itself is bigger now, with less leaf and limb in its face. It’s still blue. It’s still beautiful.
I can’t believe all of these trees are gone, I tell N. They were here for so long.
We will plant new ones, she tells me. They will grow again.
My heart aches for our neighbors. We walk past our neighbor’s front yard, now covered in the hundreds of bricks that used to compose his second story. At first, there was nothing, he tells me. This was just a tree in my yard. Now it’s a tree in my house.
N checks on the fairy garden he’d built into the base of another tree which still stands. Elfis is okay, she assures me, pointing to the tiny toy elf. But his fence fell down. And the bird bath is upside down. I’m going to help. She stands the fence back up, and I go back into our home for supplies. I emerge with a fresh bouquet of flowers, a bowl, some water, some scissors, and a few beloved seashells from our trip to Pensacola.
My neighbor and I discuss insurance policies. We discuss how the sirens failed, how there wasn’t enough time to get to the basement. How he crouched in the stairwell with his arms protecting his head. We discuss how lucky we all are.
Meanwhile, N snips and presses. She fusses and fixes. She fills the tiny bird bath with a teaspoon of water. She digs holes to plant new flowers. She decorates Elfis’ home with the heart of a child who wants to help. I hope he likes it, she whispers to me, as our neighbor goes back inside. I think we did good. I think this will help him smile.
Donate to the City of St. Louis Tornado Response Fund here; learn about opportunities to volunteer your time and efforts here. The 100 Roofs project is looking for volunteers here.
TUESDAY
A perfect moon in Cincinnati.
WEDNESDAY
Fred Rogers on imagination in dreams and how to imagine better ways of discussing reality with our children—and of course, on learning to look for the helpers.
THURSDAY
I was thrilled to receive the French edition of Go Your Own Way, sent to me by my French publisher, Le Livre de Poche. The French edition is available here.
Other editions include: the UK edition (Penguin Random House UK), Arabic edition (Jarir), and of course, the original English edition (Tarcher).
FRIDAY
Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.
You need not die today.
Stay here--through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.
Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.
—To The Young Who Want to Die by Gwendolyn Brooks
Guns are still the #1 killers of American children and teenagers. Please demand action; please donate to Everytown to support common sense gun laws.
The National Network of Abortion Funds helps ensure the bodily autonomy and reproductive rights for all people. Please consider donating if you can.
If you'd like to support me, you can order my latest journal, Go Your Own Way: A Journal for Building Self-Confidence, or my book of illustrated essays, How it Feels to Find Yourself—for yourself, a loved one, or both!
My art prints, stationery, and books are also available through BuyOlympia.
See you next week!
xx,
M
Wow, what a poem!!
I’m in Missouri, in the southwest corner, and I’ve been watching and thinking about our neighbors in St. Louis ❤️