A list of things I've lost

A list of things I’ve lost.

1. The tiny broom to my tiny dust pan. Now it’s just a tiny dust pan without a mate. I suspect I threw out the brush with the recycling, which feels reckless. It was a cute set. Cactus green. An above average mini broom set.

2. My chin to a big zit. It hurts when I press on it. So I spend half the day distracted as I press on it and think about how much it hurts to press on it.

3. A friend. She shows up in my dreams now. Regularly. For a while they were contentious dreams. There was screaming and I could never get my point across. I had to yell and yell, stuck in a frustrating loop. She always left at the end of the dream—an unresolved fade out. Lately, the dreams have morphed. When she shows up we speak to each other gently. One time we even hugged and I could feel the shape of her torso—it was so real. I woke up thinking, oh, the war is over now. You’re someone I can call again.

4. My favourite denim shirt which has big rips up the sleeves.

5. A book I made for my grandfather when I was 10-years-old. There were little poems and references to our Irish heritage in the book along with a story I wrote and illustrated about a family with about eight siblings doing mundane things. I don’t know if my grandpa liked the story.

These tights. I mean I’m not. But I want to wear tights with a zipper and then put jeans over them and undo the top part of the jeans. Why else would there be a zipper if it wasn't meant be decorative? But then I think, where would I wear them? All I do is stay at home and write things. My one pair of army green sweatpants is enough for this form of nebulous employment, along with my favourite denim shirt. Except the sleeves ripped on said denim shirt and now it’s virtually unwearable. (I will now go add it to the things I’ve lost.)

Past Lives. A delicate love story (of sorts) where two childhood friends meet up twenty years later to see what they have become to one another. I listened to an interview with the writer/director Celine Song and was so inspired by her bravery and willingness to “fuck around” as she describes in her work. Playfulness and years of bad writing to get to the good writing. And Past Lives is good writing.