A black and white drawing, framed. It depicts a park in Manhattan—tall skyscrapers in the background; trees, children playing on a swingset, and a bench in the foreground. The signature in the bottom righthand corner—Doris Spier Harman, my great grandmother. She was an artist, making paintings as one of her main interests. I made a digital version of this drawing in Procreate for my mother for Christmas. I wonder what my great grandmother would have thought of Procreate, or my art. I hope she would be proud that I make art.
I show these two pictures side by side to my closest friends. They show the whole story, I think. In the first, in the midday sun under the green trees in the park, we are happy, smiling, glowing. Our eyes are bright, and full of love. I see an innocence in my own face—a willful optimism about the future, a youthful ignorance about the pain that was coming.
In the second, the camera shows us, the same people, in the same respective positions—still midday, but on a rainy day, and still beset by trees, but miles and miles and a world away. It is two years later—two years, three months, six days. So much has changed. We are happy here, also, but it is a different happiness—the happiness of friends. I see a weariness in our eyes, a knowledge of what we did not yet know before. I am sad to see it, and grateful—for there we are, still connected, after it all, when we so easily might not be. And what a tragedy that would be.
The camera is held from above, pointed downwards, towards the ground. The forest’s earthy base holds pine needles and dirt, rocks and leaves. The stump is wet, glistening with the residue of rainwater. Concentric circles mark the tree’s growth across decades. The flat base of the stump is covered with nine red stones, circular, smooth—one in the center, and eight spanning the circumference, lining the edge, where the tree-heart meets the skin-bark.
The hospice. My hand, holding my mother’s hand. She is in the quiet phase, non-responsive, withdrawn into herself as the end approaches. My hand is warm, young, full of feeling and feelings. Her hand is weathered, stiff—it looks almost sunburnt, but she has not been outside in weeks. It is the day before her death.
Archival photos of notes my mother wrote me. She sent me notes with my lunch in elementary school. This one is dated October 19th, 2000. The notepaper is from a special pad she bought for these notes, designed for kids. Each one has bright colors, friendly fonts, bad jokes, playful drawings, and a prompt or suggestion. This paper’s prompt starts: “You’re a terrific kid!” in bold letters. My mom continued: “Dear Michael—Here’s ten reasons (out of many!) why I believe you are a terrific kid!”
A stream, in a forest. Midday. Sun falling through the treetops. The motion of water visible in the stillness of a photograph. Rocks by the edge of the river. This is where she wanted to go, to be, after. This is where we spread her ashes. This is where a butterfly came flying by, perhaps to honor her passing, I believe to mark her continued presence.
A parking lot in Boston. Only two cars in the lot, and a building in the background—weathered gray walls, small, ugly windows, air conditioning units popping out. A mural lining the lot, stretching horizontally to span its length. Details not visible, but the whole of it is there. Dark blue and yellow and brown and black. Geometric lines making a mosaic, stained glass patterns of the subject. I don’t much like a lot of the street art I see—this is a notable exception. My eyes run over the lines, puzzling out answers to mysteries it doesn’t contain, but seems to.
A long, large brown table. Carpet. Blackboard and a screen. Uncomfortable wooden chairs, and Mary and Eric, at different edges of the table—looking at their phones. They are doing an exercise I asked them to. We are on a little Curiosity field trip. We were near my alma mater, ten years after I graduated, and I wanted to show them St. John’s—I wanted to convey what it meant to me, what I learned there.
A piece of paper. My handwriting is a scrawl, jagged and rough, but legible, palpably earnest. Metta phrases and prayers, poetry and invocations, symbols and sigils. The four hearts symbol I have tattooed on my left arm. A insignia with a circle, two squares positioned in a diamond, and a heart—to signal the realms of the present and the realms to come. It is now buried in the ground, in a park in Albania, where it will presumably decay before anyone finds it. A companion piece to several such pieces I have since made and buried elsewhere, buried around the world, the first of many—a variety of words and occasions, but always my same heart’s prayer.
A woman’s naked back. You cannot see my lover’s face, only her hair and her skin. The same insignia is drawn on her back with marker, along with words and invocation. Her skin has become a prayer by my hand, as our love has become magick by our limbs.
Blue sky background, queen face foreground. The grass holds us, underneath. Her hair whisps through the air, as if it tricks the earth to believe it is the wind itself. She smiles at me, glowing from above. She is happy, and so am I. I run my eyes over hers, her features—my heart asks questions of her soul. Who are U? Why have U come into my life? Why do I dream of U? Where will this take us? Now, looking back, I wonder—was this when we were happiest? Or are there happinesses yet to come?
A more solemn day. Grey. Cold. The tree, spanning its width overhead, releasing its blossoms to the earth beneath. She walks towards it—a black raincoat, a flowing green patterned dress, sandals underneath her feet. I am glad to be with her. I am glad to hold her hand.
I am on the left of the photo, looking down—my friend is on the right, with curly hair and a black collared shirt. I am smiling. I like the way I am holding my arms. My right arm (on the left edge of the photo) has my curiosity tattoo; my right has a temporary heart tattoo I have inked upon my own arm with pen. I don’t know why, but there is some kind of ring on my left hand.
We are facing our two other friends, not visible. There are candles on the wooden table, surrounding the sacred altar of donuts. Six donuts of various artisanal varieties, held in a precious white box. Somehow, by unspoken consensus, the shared heartspace of our field decides to make ceremony out of the feast, to make magick of the ordinary joy of a delicious treat. We might have eaten the donuts in minutes—instead, we take an hour, and set some aside for a ritual that will be completed the following day. It is absurd, joyful, hilarious, and yet sincere, earnest, heartfelt—inexplicably, unbelievably holy. The Day We Ate Donuts.
My love and I stop at the train station to take a selfie, before we part. It is the last day of our relationship, which we had agreed months before would end on this day. There is a kindness in our eyes, an honesty, a triumph. We are smiling. We are happy. We love each other, and we are friends once more.
A train, a world away. Days before I wrote these words U read now. My dear friend, smiling, laughing, his skin flush with joy, his eyes filled with tears. I’ve made a joke that has summoned his laughter. Our troubles melt away, if only for a moment.
