R-11

A great nervousness has hindered my writing a rumination. As with all apprehension, I seek to overcome; I venture forth to do so. And so we go, onwards, then.

Hello, fellows! It has been a moon or two. Two. One of my favourite novels is Walk Two Moons, and I highly recommend it; it shaped many of my notions of love between people. It and Wildwood Dancing are perhaps most responsible for my understanding of love and the forms it can take.

2026 has been a year of mourning for me. For many, I am sure, but we must speak of ourselves, first and foremost, with experiences. We write first what we ourselves have experienced. My twinsoul’s grandfather died this year. Days after his birthday, three-fourths of a century. I remember, during our one and only meeting, mentioning the odd tendency of people to go around their birthdays. “A neat kind of symmetry,” I’d called it. I met him during the week I spent visiting my twinsoul, our first physical encounter (so far as we’re aware!). Situational domino: he encouraged my twinsoul to write; my twinsoul encouraged me to write. How many stories, poems, songs would not exist without this man? Magnanimous. Kind. Witty. Sarcastic. Splendid. A delight. We developed at least two inside jokes during those few precious hours we spent together. “You ever hear the phrase, ‘You’re a credit to your race?’” he’d asked me as my twinsoul and I were departing for the night. I chuckled; we both knew what that phrase really meant, knew how we both took it, as a well-meaning meeting of white palm to coloured cheek, with us feeling more the sting of a smack than the pleasantry of a pat. “Yes,” I answered, knowing what was coming next. “Well, you’re a credit to your race,” he told me, and I laughed; I said, “And you to yours!”

A year and some months past. I experience for the second time in my life the taboo of getting too close to the deceased, standing there with my by-brother, my twinsoul’s husband, the empty vessel of a man who once overbrimmed with life. There are few men I’ve ever wanted to emulate. My maternal grandfather. My twice-maternal great-grandfather. My twinsoul’s grandfather. My by-brother stands there. I stand there. We are silent. Solemn. I kept anticipating some kind of joke, that he would sit up, wink, put a finger to his lips, and lay down again. “Best rest I’ve gotten in years,” perhaps his hushed joke to us. I tried not to think too much about the fact I’d missed my great-grandfather’s funeral, but wore a suit that I’d gotten to imitate one of his more regular looks to the funeral of my twinsoul’s grandfather. Wearing the clothes of on one of that aforementioned list to the funeral of another.

That was January.

February, bitter cold, hungry frost. Seventy hour work weeks, seven days of work a week, frigidity, fascism. I have burnt myself out for months; I have months yet to go. The place I should be able to call home is as exhausting as both workplaces. I choose not to bring up Black History Month at my primary place of employment because within me is a fury with its reins frayed by exhaustion and frostbite. I know what my presentation would have started with. “How many of you regard your morals as immutable?” followed by “How many of you believe slavery is acceptable?” and then “How many of you believe prison labour is acceptable?” “Do you believe any person should be able to premeditatedly kill another? Do you believe in the death penalty?”

Sometimes it is best to keep to myself such things.

In January, I listened to chatmonchy’s discography, introduced to them via Princess Jellyfish, which quickly became one of my favourite anime I’ve watched recently. I love their work! Reminds me of the Bangles! February, because I missed my twinsoul, I listened to Dance Gavin Dance’s discography; enthralled with them, despite their horrible history. I think their last couple of albums were a little weak, but… I understand the weariness a wound can cause, let alone multiple. This month of March I’ve dived into Wolf Alice’s discography; I’m still going through it, but I thoroughly enjoy their sound and songs so far!! I did listen to all of Mazzy Star’s discography, though, and laughed realising that the vocalist lent her voice to one of my favourite songs by Massive Attack.

We are foraying into the creation of a musical. I am still deliberating whether this will be a musical, performed on stage, or a musical in the way of The Hazards of Love by the Decemberists, a musical performed as an album. It details two lovers trying to find each other after learning they both survived a global cataclysm. I’ve written two songs’ lyrics and am excited to keep getting through the other thirteen. I’ve found the best way to keep momentum onwards is to give oneself events to launch off and land upon. I… am exhausted. I am drained. Yet there is love to do and love to experience, and I urge you, as I urge myself, to keep going, to keep searching, to keep hoping. I love you, fellow. I do.