I’m reviewing photos from last year, and I don’t know how I got here. There are days when my heart aches from missing, I look back to see whether this is just a calendar reaction to someone or something absent from the year before. I look at the photos and can’t tell what I was doing. I don’t know the codes I left for my future self to remember those moments. There is foliage buried under snow from when you left, and sparkles of light in the Christmas tree of an empty mall. Did I ever tell you where I was?
I miss writing love letters. It used to be intense. I remember the first one I wrote; years later, he said, “It was a dagger through my chest that twisted with every word.” I took it as a compliment. I wish I still had it. I wish I could remember how I once loved so deeply and passionately that it stole the air from my lungs. I think I fell in love with that idea over and over again until I exhausted myself.
I walked home from the studio. I missed the streetcar and couldn’t be bothered to wait. My bag is heavy with a bottle of milk, starch, cocoa powder, chia seeds, a sketchbook, makeup, gym clothes, and deodorant. It hurts my shoulders, but I’m having an interview in my head: “When did you become an artist?” And I answer—mindful, complicated, but honest—“It wasn’t a moment. It was many. And the last one came after the war. I didn’t want to be an artist anymore. I decided I would go into tech, become a chef, design jewelry and sell it online, have a kid and grow old—be anything that felt useful in the state we were in. And I don’t know what happened afterwards. I jumped into the emerald lake, and I found myself painting again.”
Now I’m home. K is coughing constantly, and I make her laugh, which makes it worse. She tells me, “I think you were a witch at some point, you know? And you got burnt.” I smile, “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” She keeps choking on laughter over my random comments and begs me to shut up. We watch the peach tree. I start writing. I wish I could still write like I did the first time I fell in love.