Dream House
my heart is the house
In Kansas City, spring is swallowed quickly and whole by summer. It is spring and then, with one steady gulp, it is summer. This weekend, I thought the shift had happened, but last night, a storm regurgitated spring for a few more days. A tree fell across the road by my house, and the thunder waking me, quite startlingly, from a dream about an international flight with one of my old coworkers.
The dream plane had a dream gym with dream pink workout equipment. I was late for the flight because I realized I had to take my cat back to the house and get my passport (duh). Because I was late, all they had for me to sit on for the duration of the flight was a cheap office chair. I ordered the beef for my meal. We were going to South America, a place I’ve never been outside of my dreams. In my dreams, I also didn’t make it to South America because, well, you already know. The thunder.
This is what my days have felt like, recently. Fitful starts and wakes from deep mental journeys to places that don’t make sense; places I’ve never been. Parenthood (is it like my friend with horrible pregnancy gas or is it like the duck tucking her chick into the depths of her feathers or is it both). Solid relationship (is it like coming home or is it like the horses tucking their necks into each other or is it both). Creative success (is it like an exhale or the crack of a door that never closes or is it both). I find myself playing out so many scripts of possible lives. And then something snaps me back and reminds me to be in my body, in my home, in my life. This one, right here, that has it all, already.
Last weekend I saw someone in a restaurant that I know from my 12-step program. I watched her like a nature documentary, as if I’d finally realize that I, too, was just an animal with awkward limbs trying to learn how to walk. She looked so at ease with her fellow-diners. Sipping her sparkling water and laughing, her hair perfectly tucked back in a clip.
Later, an old bald man on the street asked if he knew me and I said yes and we hugged. He said nice to see you Kim. It was then we both realized we did not know each other.
Even later, someone I’ve met multiple times called me Kasey. I corrected her, but I don’t know why, it wasn’t really worth it. What does it mean to be known? What does it mean to try to be our whole selves? What does it mean to be seen? To be perceived?
There are 38 people watching a livestream of experts sharing the harms ICE cause to people trying to seek health care, and the horrors people experience when in detention. There are 24,351 people watching a livestream of baby bald eagles in Big Bear. I am both of these people, at the same time. What does it look like to feel alive and live a whole life amidst the atrocities and the grief?
In 44 days I get to log out of work for 12 weeks. I’m going to travel with people I love and also try to answer some of these questions. Really sit in this moment I’m at in my life and dance through an accounting of all that I am so grateful to have, and everything I know I want to reach for from here. Little wiggly arms outstretched, welcoming the answers that already lie somewhere deep in the dark hallways of my unconscious. Soaking in salt water until the clarity is leeched out from the innards, diving down and finding whatever is glinting in the sun, flickering with the movement of the surface.
Until then, I scribble love notes in my phone, watch for fireflies, learn the patterns of my cat’s sleeping inhales and exhales, try to learn to love running again, breathe into the place just below where my ribs knit together, and tend to my home. My neighbor is smoking a cigarette again, and I ask her if she remembers her dreams. “Sometimes. It depends. Recently I had a dream I was at my high school and didn’t remember how to get home. I don’t know what it means.”
Maybe we are all, in our own weird ways, figuring out how to come home to ourselves.
Happy Gemini season <3 I hope you’re spinning, playing, disco-napping, car-singing, trying, trying again, doing gay stuff, pining after your crushes, canon-balling, and staying way too curious.
I imagine if you’re gay, you’ve already watched the Towa Bird and Katy O’Brian music video, but in case you need a break in your day, you’re welcome.
What are your big gay plans for the next several weeks? I want to sweat on people I’m dancing with, stay up too late talking on the phone drinking NA wine, watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire in my underwear, make piles of tortillas, and polar plunge.
Speaking of NA wine, last week my friend Quinn and I co-hosted an NA wine tasting. It was so sweet and silly and I took it very seriously. We had 2 sparklings, 3 white, 2 rose, and 3 red, rounding out 10 bottles of varyingly tolerable fake wines. We talked about tasting notes, gave them scores, ate a lot of cheese, and hugged. The winners were Saint Viviana’s Cabernet Sauvignon and Kim Crawford’s (lol) Illuminate Sauvignon Blanc. I used to love going to wine tastings and hearing stories about the dirt, the minerality, the weather, the deep decades long tales of wine, and it was really special to remind myself that getting sober doesn’t take all of that away from you. Note to self to do more bizarre gatherings like this.
Monday night I drove to Lawrence to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend (love you, bird). I felt close and far from home, flipping through the queer love letter anthology I got her as a gift in my car before handing it over. I drove home racing ahead of a tornado warning, storm at my back. The farm roads let me go fast and think about that horse. Lightning was in the rearview the whole time, and the first drop of rain hit the second I locked my front door. We’re all wondering if we got home safe. It feels good to run with something that powerful.
