swim in his voice, his joy, his party.
Suddenly, I feel it. My chin starts bopping. The drummer is way back in the shot, and he’s bopping too. I think about Jack, about moving my body to his music on the side stage back in Austin, nerves shot, like the buzzing copper innards of electrical wire. I danced for him, desperately, with everything, just wanting him to see me and to remind him I was still there under the drug haze and the days spent in bed. He never did see, but of course he didn’t. I never saw myself either.
The drummer on TV comes down on the cymbal and I put my hands up.
The song stops being a thing that happens outside my body; it becomes my breath and my blood. I pry myself up. The comfort of the couch is an adhesive, but Justin won’t let me be stuck to something right now. Like a holy miracle on a big, carpeted church stage, I’m dancing, for the first time in years.
Percussion leads me ecstatically around the room and makes my feet light. I grind and make cursive letters with my butt while Ellie stands up on the couch and flicks her pom-pom tail. I smile big at her, I cry, and I hoot and sing until my lungs ache more than my back does. Every movement is a fight, but what a fucking fight! What a blissful rebellion!
The end comes. Way too soon. Horns begin to exhale, lights scramble back and forth. I join Justin for one last, euphoric scream, and I see her. I catch a wobbly glimpse of myself in the window, made by nighttime into a wall of dark mirrors.
There she is.
Joyful, silly, soulful. Radically sacred. Pajamas and sweat and freedom. There I am.
* * *
Springtime is filled with silence from Jack and loudness from the rest of the world. He’s everywhere in the big blue house. His clothes hang next to mine in our closet, and three pairs of big, boat-shaped tennis shoes huddle together by the front door, but I rarely hear from him. I call him; he doesn’t answer. I text; I’m not even sure he reads the messages. I don’t know if this is what it looks like when a marriage is over or if there’s some way we can begin again again. When the quiet gets too quiet, when the pain keeps me awake at night, and when I hunger for Jack’s body next to mine, I call on the new and old heartbeats—Amber’s, Katherine’s, and, of course, Justin’s—they stand beside me in song. We all gather together in the evenings for dancing and grieving and whiskey drinks that get hot in our throats. We fill up the empty spaces of the big blue house and I keep fighting to catch more glimpses of myself. By April, I feel a hundred years older than I did in March. Chronic pain, by definition, doesn’t really get better, but I try to live with it as best I can. I take care of my body by exercising it, dragging it along the sidewalks under the cherry trees, feeding it whatever it wants. I surround it with beauty, the single most effective medication I’ve tried. I find it in the daylilies opening up wide to receive the sun; in backyard dance parties; in dark, syrupy rum drinks and the feeling of fellowship. I find it hiking at Burgess Falls, where the rocks are electric green with moss and water sings to me louder than my broken nerves and broken heart can scream. Pain is big, but beauty is bigger. I make beauty my mission.
Looking for love on the outside to fill the pit on the inside, I start an Instagram account. I document everything that feels beautiful to me, from the biggest adventure to the smallest decorating project. My following grows and I use social media as a place I can go to lose myself and find myself all at once. The woman I am there is strong and pretty. Her life is fabulous. She has enough friends. Every “like” feels like love; every follower feels like an admirer. I post twice a day, three times a day, sometimes more. It’s a new addiction that’s impossibly easy to feed.
18 The Yes Thing
There’s a Walmart nearby that thinks it’s a grocery store. They sell two different types of lettuce and the cashiers wear green smocks. Even without the stretchy pants and plastic baby pools and