The Wastepaper Basket

I am worth the work to find beauty in. So lately, I’ve been trying. Trying to find beauty. Trying to be beautiful.

Every day I wake up and dress like I’m trying to hide something. Layers of baggy clothes, soft pants and large sweaters, soft dollars store socks, caps and hats or whatever I can find to cover this overgrown haircut.

I’d like to dress beautifully, but my clothes are a hodgepodge since gaining weight. I’m just happy to fit into a few pairs of jeans, and hide while I’m getting used to my new shape. I’m in a cycle of spending half the week trying not to look at myself in the mirror– just get the basic necessities done. Brush your teeth, wash your face, apply to jobs, walk the dog, eat at least two meals. But you can’t live a whole life like this, and I know it. So lately, I’ve been making things.

Last night I took a long time making chicken stock. I layer a bed of bones, and crispy scraps of chicken skin; the leftovers from dinner. I made a nice dinner– I’m happy to see it take a new life in this way. After this come the carrots; peeled cloves or garlic, whole, and also crushed;  two shallots, three stalks of celery. Paprika, salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme.

I’m interrupted in this writing– the dog is whining at me. I’ve just come out of the shower, and despite having many people to care for him in the house, he’s waited until I come out of the shower to ask for me especially. Part of me is annoyed by this. Part of me is proud that I take care of him. He knows who’s going to take care of him.

Sometimes I hate writing this blog. I don’t want to be the bitch who has mean things to say about everybody. That’s how I see this a lot of times– the compost pile of my life, where I throw out waste in the hopes of cultivating… something more worthwhile. Something a little prettier than this.

How I’d like to be beautiful. I haven’t been trying much lately. But the aggravation that I feel when I stop trying, that’s what keeps me going. That, and the knowledge that I am crafting something.

I sit in at night, watching old movies and making valentines. 

“Winter must be so cold,” Rita Hayworth cries over a balcony, “for those without any happy memories to warm them.” 

Fuck you. I cut out a dinosaur and add little hearts to float around him. I go to bed with glue-covered hands, swiping away the sharp pieces of paper trimmings, and go to sleep.

It’s a bleak atmosphere to dream, a midwest January. Whatever isn’t eaten up by brown and dread is licked over with rust and rubble. But there’s a beauty in this deadness. I can;t say I can hate it here, when I know what spring looks like here. But it’s not spring now– now comes the winter of our discontent.

In the mornings I reach over for a few books on my nightstand. Anything to keep me from reaching for my phone– which I inevitably do a few hours later. I try and read ten or so pages out of each book, and I hate how much of a difference it makes in my mood. Books instead of the phone, tea instead of coffee. 

In over a month in Missouri, my life has found a routine. I make dinners now, and try to scare Dove out of the kitchen so I can clean alone. When I first arrived, my sibling wanted to spend every waking moment with eachother– if I said I was going to do some project, cook something, make something, they would invite themselves, or worse, take it over. If i hid in my room, they’d try and see if I’d do whatever I was doing in front of them. Writing, drawing, watching tv. I still haven’t found a good excuse to say no– Dove wants to be loved, like all of us. Dove’s way of being loved is always being around someone. My version of being loved is never making someone unhappy– so as far as it is from my wants, I spent a lot of time around Dove. I just can’t seem to find a way to tell them that I flinch whenever they get close. There’s no easy way to tell someone that being in the same room as them is like locking yourself in a burning building. But especially Dove.

I know that I’ll feel freer when I leave Missouri again. I’m just sad that it always seems that I miss the springs. Maybe I could feel like I was growing, too, if I could see everything all green and silvery again. I like our springs– here in the ozarks, the hills seem to move with the wind, more like waves than solid ground. The sky is clear, except when it rains– clean, heavy, washing rain. Moody, touchy, full of whims, I feel like the landscape reads my mind in this season.

But if all goes well, I’ll miss it, going to yet another out of state job. It’s what’s best– I can only chase Dove away so many times, and can’t hide forever.

I think that’s what I’m trying to find, in all of this beautiful search; trying to find a prettier me in here somewhere.

It snows tomorrow– and as claustrophobic as it can feel to be locked up, my mother will be home. It’ll be almost normal, all of us being locked in here together. And I can make everyone as much tea as they’d like, and watch musicals together, and I’ll make macrons. Pink macrons. The chickens will hide in their coop, and Dove will bag on the piano (which I’ll pretend to like) and it will be… beautiful.