Hello, hello. No jazz music, because we got a reading for you. Welcome to the back door of Threadings., which is, you know, business in the front, party in the back— and by party I mean, it's sad girl hours. Threadings is the newsletter and podcast where I, your host, Ismatu, discuss the things that keep and collect me that stitch me together in this world, like a quilt. Unambiguously, one of those things is grief. I write about grief all the time, because I be grieving.
There's a lot of death in this life and that's beautiful and tragic and, you know, many other clichéd things in between. And I am sitting on mountains of writing that I did in college (because I was a creative writing major), for fun, in journals— and some of that stuff I want to make a part of my public canon, but I don't necessarily want it to be for the big bad Internet. like. It's not… it’s not everybody. It's the close friends version. So if you're here and you're listening to me mildly overshare on the internet as someone who is a card carrying, Mildly Overshares In Creative Writing Courses Writer… everybody's just gonna enjoy our piece. We're gonna mind our business. We're gonna say thank you for the art. We're gonna keep it moving.
But anyways.
This is a piece that I wrote in June of 2018, and it was for an incomplete. I had just lost an aunt that I loved, and I was writing a lot about grief. It was the only thing I could think of. It was at the top of my skin, it was in the marrow of my bones, so. This was me seeing the ocean for the first time in a long time, as a mountain girly.
So here it is.
On Grief and God
The sea that greets me took his sweet time getting there. 4.54 billions of years ago, enough matter wound itself together to give life to the possibility of life. And she, Life, waited 500 million more years for the ocean. The whole earth waited. And swelled. And then there he was, bright as the day is long.
And now, the sea waits and swells for the love of everyone he's fathered. Pacific today is sleepy and glittering and looking at me. Looking at me, in this case, means the kind of indirect gaze you make at someone when you don't want them to know that they see you, but they so desperately want to be seen by you.
It's a warm day with a persistent sun and a beautiful horizon and a handful of people and… somehow he manages to have eyes for everyone. I decide it is too early to get enveloped just yet so I sit down in my towel and I lounge. I open my book. I take out my pizza. My clothes are stripped and at my feet so that I can feel as much of the light and the wind and the sand as possible. The seagulls cock their heads and grow bolder as I eat, and it's hot now.
Close to noon. And the ocean seeks to keep me cool. I don't know how long it is that I sleep and wipe the sand off my face and sleep again, but eventually I get up and I make my way out to see him.
And he's so cool today. Caring with him all the things he's let have a home in him, like something precious is bound to his back. Coming in for an embrace with Pacific is not a toes-first situation. I walk out while he inhales, and when he comes forth, he sweeps around my knees. He's just like my first love in the dead of sleep, rolling over me all at once and folding me into his exhale. I’m wrapped up in four billion years-worth of a moment.
Myself, on an inhale: “hello, Sea.”
He, pulsing: helloismatuhelloismatuhelloismatu
He leaps over me with waves and tags me with seaweed, nestling every bit of himself that he can in my hair, in the cracks in my skin. When you’re hit by a wave, you remember why people sing of the ocean when they worship God; grace hits you like this, all at once, slaps your indifference and reluctance with salted love. Preserved love. Sick of being filled with little bits of plastic sin from everyone and still… here to love you. And eyes for everyone, just like God. So we sing together. It’s easier to understand such a vast infinity with a smaller infinities you can see and taste.
* * * *
When I am back in the desert, I find it easier to breathe. It’s eight days later and I am talking to my sister about the process of existing while numb. I tell her I’m having a hard time remembering the last time I felt real things. I tell her I am thankful for being alive.
The Sea slips from my closed eyes like he belongs up here, at two thousand feet altitude. He rocks, Pacific, peaceful, down my cheeks, onto my fingers, slow as he pleases.
helloismatu
hello ismatu—
Hello, Ismatu.
The sea that greets me takes his good, sweet time getting there. By some miracle, nearly twenty years ago, enough matter curled itself into a fist to give life inside this chest cavity a fighting chance; she waited, and waited, and waits for the ocean. And if her beating heart’s swollen enough, sometimes the Ocean even appears: bright like fireflies, temporary, fitting in the palm of my hand. He lingers like them too, floating down from tired eyes, in no hurry. Just as salty as ever. A preserved kind of love. Pacific takes time. He takes his time.
Thank you for listening. I hope the work of your day, including and most especially in regards to the Grief, passes through you— your hands and your body— with ease.
Or, simpler said: peace.
IG
From The Vault: On Grief and God