Spring, moving, & other changes
Dog-eared #40
This is a long one, too long for email Substack says, so please click “View entire message” or read in the app.
The last time I sat down and wrote a Dog-eared essay, the geese were returning to a blank south. Now, the lush colors of spring are melting across the landscape. The bare branches of the trees have been filled in with green. The eyes of the irises have turned to the sun. The tight fists of peonies are beginning to unfurl. This is how it goes every year. Spring always comes, in some way. In the heavy head of winter, I have trouble remembering this; a truth turned hazy through the fogged mirrors. Still it comes, still the change comes.
This year, the change of spring coincided with another change. A personal shift that was quite drastic and quick, but has only ever felt right. I’ve moved to the city and started at a new job. I drive a car that’s not the one I’ve had since I was sixteen. I come home to an apartment that’s all my own. When I want to talk to my family I can’t go down the stairs to find them, I have to reach for my phone. I don’t hear the bugs and frogs from my bed, but there’s still a body of water nearby.
This shift is still sinking through the layers of my body and mind. Slowed down by the pace of my days at work and the attempts I make at creating a sustainable routine for this moment in life. Like my precious days, I don’t think I’ll be able to truly make sense of this upheaval until I am well past it.
Writing is how I process, how I understand the world around me and my place in it. Sometimes, I don’t know how I feel until I write. A dialogue with the self. The holds on the cliffside I grip onto in the climb. Too much has happened to fill you all in on. So I’m straying from the traditional format of Dog-eared today.
In early March, I got a check-up for the first time in eight or nine years. Under the scope of what was to come next, this seems so small. But it was and is a big deal. Being sick and getting medical tests done and seeing a doctor has frightened me since I was little. In third grade, I fainted after getting a vaccine. There’s probably something to all of these fears, probably in the realm of not having control over my body in a way. While I’ve managed my terror over needles — my vaccine record and tattoos are proof — the other anxieties are very much alive in my mind. But I got through this check-up and bloodwork at the big girl age of 26.
The apartment is very bare in many ways. The walls are empty. My TV sits on plastic moving boxes and my nightstand is another storage container. But there are pockets of color and personality: in the growing collage on the refrigerator door, the jewelry and crystals along the windowsill, the gingham sheets on the bed, and such.
My weekday evenings are blissfully uneventful. I go to the gym in my apartment building or take a walk. Cook dinner and usually call home. Then veg out in front of the TV until sleep calls. Some nights, I bring work back with me. But I’m trying to get better at that.
Last weekend Mom came down. We roamed the gardens at Maymont, stopping to breathe in the scent of every bloom. The sun pressed against the sky; white streaks of sunscreen were visible in our hairline. We sat under a canopy of trees and I saw a deer for the first time since leaving home. A black snake crossed the path seconds after we had walked by, somehow I stopped myself from shrieking. We got ice cream, stopped at an antique store, and ran errands. I now have my library card but I’m having trouble sitting down and reading. That Sunday, we watched way too many episodes of The Pitt and got pancakes.
Emily came over last night. We made Mediterranean bowls and drank wine. I loved having her in this space. We hadn’t seen each other since February, so there was much to update each other on. She gifted me the most gorgeous print, I’m so excited to fill these blank walls with art. Already planning our itinerary for the next time she visits.
I’ve made a playlist of the music I’ve been listening to for you all. Still taking in the new Noah Kahan but yes, of course I love it. Not yet finished with The Pitt but planning to finish soon. I’m caught up on Summer House and The Real Housewives of Rhode Island, but I don’t find myself caring enough to watch RHOBH. Big Mistakes on Netflix is hilarious and the pacing is excellent, I definitely recommend it.
Thank you for your patience and your attention. This little Substack brings me a whole lotta joy.
SHE RETURNS! love this so much and so excited to read about all your happenings in this new space! also you and Emily and Ma are such gorgeous ladies!!!!!