cc: striptease. [September 27, 2022]
it’s a little hectic over here.
I know there’s a lot happening: a new realm to house us and the word, an archival resurfacing, hints about future offerings, and that’s only this letter. beyond this page, or screen, lies infinite untold chaos and mystery and doubt and the incomprehensible. for better or worse. in sickness and in health. over and over. forever and ever amen.
disorder reigns.
& so, if this space holds anything, let it be enigma. let it be opacity. + let it be sexy.
last summer, or maybe the summer before that, I was an artist-in-residence at a spot and met this guy, a man, a painter. (he came by my studio and talked about the light; it’s the best light in the building. he lingered too long in the doorway and was eager to make acquaintances.) he has a kind of schwoopy energy and a great ‘90s cut that lays half-moons of salt-and-pepper strands across his brows. his aesthetic is slept in, with pops of color accenting a haphazard ease. he’s at once unflappable and obnoxious; I am supremely mesmerized and irritated by the stride with which he takes conversations, pivoting at every joke, every aside, sort of unfazed and casual about the charming cadence he spins. it’s alarming and bothersome and he keeps steady eye contact; bewildering. he never made a move, but definitely wanted to, and that was boring and is par for the course in near-40s singledom. I visited his chaotic studio and am a sucker for intense brooding and everything had a little story attached, a love language.
I’m happily single. I can’t imagine having a man (I’m straight) in my home and space and days, and I also obsessively imagine this reality. I try them on and consider the version of myself that would love and be loved by them. what it would mean to wear that self as skin. in all imaginations, the life is as joyful and tragic as this one. in this one, the dishes in the sink are mine. the tables are covered with my leftovers and the shelves are filled with my books and the walls with my memories, and so the art of the life is my own. I’m happily single.
when we ran into each other that fall, we exchanged numbers, and there was some texting and interest and that thing where they send you songs? or, like, videos of the records they’re listening to? it’s juvenile and endearing, and a quick way to discover taste. then, there was a fly-by* at jazz downtown, two long phone calls over the holidays to regale the other with family shenanigans, then a planned dinner date in the new year (this year) that he canceled. he “wasn’t ready” for anything (presumably assuming anything had yet been offered).
he circled back a few months later while I was in New York. he’s chatty. I’m in town for the PEN Awards. he follows me on socials. he’s taller in his pictures than I remembered. my dad has emergency surgery in early March and somewhere in the haze of overnight vigils, aunties hosting sleepovers for Pea, and shuffling to meetings, I found myself drinking wine in his apartment.
it’s an Art Deco building with rickety radiators, and I spent much of the night making sketches in my mind of the me made possible by that life. he takes a measure of pride in the artful curation of his spaces. everything is a project, and he rearranges rooms, wall art, record collections, bins and bins and boxes and drawers and bins and bins of materials and found objects. his canvas work is architectural, almost sculptural, and I wonder when he’ll finally take his own bait and construct in 3D, build something tangible. the metaphor isn’t lost on me. he repurposes thing. his dog is dying. he is taller than I remember. he makes no move and I need signs, so I ask what made him message me, and he works hard to not say he likes me, and I remember what freaking babies Aries’ are. I decide he can be an art-friend.
*a fly-by: when two people who want to see the other happen to be out on the same night and coordinate for a brief drink. usually there are other friends present. these people and the convenience of it all is strategic.
I am friends with another man and I believe in friendships across difference, I tell myself. men are different. it’s noble to attempt to befriend them, I quip on the drive home. I actually am friends with another man. we talk about obscure movies, being educators, living close to/with family, and public, interactive art; he has colorful glasses that coordinate with his shoes, and his floppy curls remind you of your favorite HS band teacher. I like the way he dads and sometimes think about introducing him to the Weavers. I like people who understand singlehood as whole, who do not presume I am dissatisfied, lonely, unfilfilled, and who never ever ever try to set me up. I decide the painter will be a friend like this.
we watch a movie at his house and I tell him I am a woman who rejects ambivalence, and he tells me he isn’t suave. it’s a simple statement of fact, not an apology, and he holds my gaze as he speaks low and moves close and then he’s very close and we kiss long and slow on the couch, under the lamp, and I am suave enough for the both of us, and plus he’s very smooth for someone so un-suave. it’s the kind of night where the moon sets aglow the edges of clouds, and I decide the painter will be a friend like this.
my dad is at home recovering, and spring break is close. the painter’s dog dies days before his birthday. the bithday he shares with my ex. and my mother. I decide we simply will not be more than friends, though I haven’t decided what kind of friends. he’s sad and mopey and talks about his therapist and ex-wife. he’s a better listener when he’s sad.
Pea has a mother’s helper sleepover at my best friend’s and I take myself to someplace loud. I like the invisibility cloak of age and their curious pity as they slurp into stools, faces aglow-by-screen, bewildered by the woman sipping gin + tonics, reading her book. I’m comfortable in my hips and relish self-date-nights and the saunter of my gait when my pace is my own entirely. he messages as I’m walking.
we watch sci-fi film which is objectively beautiful and the room is very dark. the whole apartment is dark. we fool around lazily, sort of off and on, like a friendly gesture. I’ve seen the film and let myself fall asleep. I awaken to literal birds chirping and pad to the door. the room is chilly and his hugs are mediocre and I want more mornings waking up surrounded by art. I snag coffee and French pastries from down the street. my child’s hugs are a wonder.
Pea and I take a spring break trip, and he flies to the Bahamas. he has a boat. he sometimes captains boats. (he’s white.) he captains a charter from the Bahamas back to the mid-Atlantic, sending me videos of the ocean and DEA planes overhead and tips for snagging good local recommendations on islands and general castaway deep thoughts for a month. back on land, he’s quiet and tending to the boat, and when he writes again in June, we are mid-tacos on our first weekend in Chicago.
I’m happily single. Pearl has decided this is the word for us. single. one of one. two of one, really, but ‘of kind.’ singlehood has been good to me, and in her safe keeping have I walked my truest steps, certain and steady in footing – not that I was without doubt, but as my most self. Chicago was exhaustingly transformative. we talk about cocoons and becoming butterflies like it’s this transcendent mutation, but each of my evolutions has threatened to kill me. if not by flattening my sight, then my stretching my skin on hooks and pins, or some persistent crushing weight, or the sudden snatching of deepest joy, or the maddening water torture of shame’s voice negging and goading and eroding my soul until ego explodes and takes the dare and, by flame, an emergent self is forged. transformation fucking wears me out. I’m happily single, and never more so than when an emergence is imminent. when my sticky, slick wings are too fresh to fly, even as I see my new entirety built for flight. I’m happily single, and I said as much each week as he’d text to inquire about the city and accuse me of inevitable pretension as a despicable, sellout MFA candidate, and, of course, send videos of the records he was playing.
the school year (this one) came quick. back home from the residency, we indulged our twelve remaining carefree days, took a sojourn to the Bay. I flirted mercilessly a couple times and we were pool rats. and then the sudden, shocking arrival of school’s return. yes, I punted connecting. weekdays are hard. I needed more notice. I’m busy. I am busy; I’ve got 1.5 full-time jobs and that’s just my days. in the dusks and dawns and nights of our lives, I’m a taxi, a therapist, a cleaning lady, a gag reel, a chef, an event planner, a friend, a writer, a student, a pillow, a daughter, a thinker, a sister. weekends are no better. we find a time. he cancels. covid exposure. I take my book on a self-date and drink champagne at a spot Pea refuses to frequent.
I was there the week prior with my best friend and I like the feel of the bar, the actual slab of material feels right to me. just after college, Reid and I lived in a house up the street that was owned by the church nearby. cheapest rent of my life. they didn’t know what they had and we didn’t either, and there’s a story about a feral cat that broke in and the spiders who own the place now, but it’s the feel of the bar that night that brought me back again. we run into Reid’s 8th grade dance date, a man I see everywhere, the brother-in-law of my movie friend, as if the universe has jokes or inside information. he departs and we discuss the difference between “handsome” and “sexy” to discover we use opposing words to describe the same thing. (weeks later, we will learn our Mercury is in the other’s sun sign, and astrology retroactively explains our love, and I will wonder aloud if what we love most is ourselves in the other.) I write in my journal, I am beginning to understand it may be futile to fight the memories that persist. perhaps they are useful information.
the bartender is dastardly, and his drawl is distracting. I liked it when he was at a bar downtown, when we first met. he’s a flirt. it takes one to know one. he’s forward, and places a hand along my waistline, on my back, as he suggestively pours another glass. this is suave and it has its place and I am relentless in my pursuit of daydream fodder. as I head for the door, he takes my hand and asks me to return soon so he can see me. I like public displays. I come home buzzing and a little weepy. I tell my mother I no longer put myself in the path of men; I’m only dating people who I see in the course of my natural days or those that seek me out. I write in my journal, entirety is not forever, just completely.
we make plans I end up canceling. I’m too tired. I am too tired. it’s probably a period thing. I collapse into bed by 7pm. I’ve told my mother dating is off the table. I’ve told her he’s a friend. I’ve told her it’s good to have friends.
he still wants to hear about Chicago and hung new artwork and it’s good to have friends. I don’t remember the apartment number. he waits for me in the hall. he rearranged the apartment and is documenting “good” and “bad” days on a chalkboard by the door. I like public displays. we sit at the table in the back room, a crosswind dramatically gusting through the open windows, punctuating the conversation. we talk for hours about nothing, really, and that is comfortable because I’m indigenous to layered conversation. threads of dialogue drop, renew. he’s excitable and unfocused and our legs criss-cross between the others, greys and browns and red and electric blue and the pink of a grapefruit, a Thursday palette. he toasted pumpkin seeds. he shows me two sweaters and one faded sweatshirt of importance. he folds them perfectly. he tells me which way is east and how to tell how much freight the passing train carries and his process for the biggest canvas in the room. I am a witness to his mythology as he crafts a frame for the lives of these objects. he steals my beret and offers vintage rum and cleaned his bathroom and tells me so and tells me to notice and, when I return, asks if I noticed. he is proud to hold my attention. he is disarming. he shows me his grandfather’s neckties he inherited. he is the family’s archivist. he stands close and I think he’s handsome and I like having my gaze demanded. he is frustratingly teasy, which is the point, and he wonders why I never make a move, which is the point, and, for me, it’s not about the chivalrous chase so much as the determination. I will be wanted. I demand to be desired. I will be told of my allure. I like public displays.
we have sex listening to jazz records beneath an equinox night. he keeps a held gaze. he is playful and that is surprising and perhaps I’ve noted goofiness where humility lies. our improvisational conversation morphs to easy pillow talk. he is unflappable. he reads me well. he is sure of himself. it seems effortless and he is his most flirtatious. I decide we can be friends like this.
he asks me to text when I get home. he says I should stay over. he may be busy next Friday, but he will double-check. if he’s free, he’ll be my theatre date. he understands now that I meant the literal color when I mentioned earlier that there’s a lot of red in [his] world. I tell him talking his family’s politics while still naked is a comedic exercise. he makes a joke about my internet women friends and watches me dress. I tell him my internet women friends stan a poetic slut. I slip out the door he holds as he sort of schwoops his hair and tells me he likes kissing my lips and my dress is inside out and just who do I think I am. I say, mother of the year.
click-clack across the tile, out the door, down the block, into the car, across town, into the garage, and up the stairs, where I kick off my well-worn slides in front of the bathroom mirror, wiping makeup remover across my mascara’d eyes, slipping rings into waiting tiny dishes. I pee and duck into bed, my child’s body a bedwarmer beside me. she curls around the S of my body, folding her fingers between my cleavage. typical. alarms will cue in six hours, signaling a new day’s beginning. there will be lunches to make, and family dinner later, and meetings earlier, and I’m working on revising a poem that’s stuck in my throat, and might need to find a sleepover for Pea this weekend. I kiss her forehead and fluff the pillow just right and turn toward the comfort of dreamy sleep, somewhere between selves, and I close my eyes and list the gifts found here on the flip side of healing, in the belly of creation, on the brink of possibility, in the dark, with only myself to guide me. I plug my phone into the charger. I’m home.
I’m asleep when my phone buzzes a reply: Mother of the Year.
at first, it was a joke. a quippy way to excuse the weight of my shifting maternal load. a quick, slightly self-deprecating, but mostly celebratory apology for the ways in which I was striving.
yes, I drop off in the last minute before school starts.
yes, I sometimes embarrassingly rant about, say, police brutality at the farmer’s market.
yes, I “forgot” to make pesto, so we’ll just have to grab Mexican for dinner.
yes, I decided to go to grad school and didn’t ask permission from the elementary students in my home.
yes, I consistently dream dreams bigger than my body can hold.
yes, I kept secrets.
yes, I often, regularly even, conjure up a someday kinda life.
yes, I am this bold, this brash, this soft, this tender all the time.
yes, I am a sarcastic, biting, impatient, unbothered, unflappable, gorgeous, determined wreck.
& in this house: I’m mother of the goddamn year.
this family doesn’t move a step without me; I am its map and path, I am its north star, I am its coast and skyline. these are not boasts, just facts. I ooze a lifeblood and there are entire hearts and spirits raised on me, by me.
to toss this over my shoulder as I excused myself from conversation got simpler, less of a critique and more of a calling. indeed, in the six months since the phrase first announced itself to me, it has gone from being a joke to a testimony to a gentle, anchored acknowledgment.
I have and do move mountains.
I want to.
I do it for my people, in this home and beyond.
I’m in contract with creation.
I am building worlds and I am essential to this future we’re creating.
I am mothering tomorrow, and tomorrow is our home, and in my house, I am mother of the year.
these core principles root me + the seasonal menu, organically creating rhythms for iterative creation and allowing natural routines to surface. moreover, these pillars remind us that the truly raw, wild, and untamed decries what is hard-hearted, defiant, and posturing.
Mother of the Year isn’t a person, or a role, or a literal translation at all, and if it is, it's a rebuttal; it’s audacity of saying yes to the infinite more we still imagine.
this is how you take a lover –-
slowly, desirous mostly of your own self; unfoldingly, in the equal night betwixt seasons, held in liminal bliss; with patience, goalessly, without design; uncompromisingly, soft soft softly, with forgiveness, certain of the doubt, in surrender to the ease; choosy; like a spectator, like an audience to your discovery; like you know a goddamn thing or two; like the body and its fantasies are inseparable; like you’ve got friends desperate for the story; better than your last, like they aren’t your last; with the tender fury of an artist, evolvingly, even here, even now; like you wanna wake up craving yourself in the morning.
yes, it’s wild inside and out; yes, we’re wild inside and out. that’s what’s happening here.
the Mother of the Year project is a lover, a weekly rendezvous, a seasonal tryst, a living story, a dialogue, an intimate history, a titillating familiarity, a delicious secret, a permission slip.
it’s a year of audacity. it’s a creative season. it’s a love affair with your art-self.
& it asks for your attuned creation, grounding into refinement over consistency, tenderness amidst brutality, pattern as practice.
after/hours continues: on Tuesdays, right here, all complimentary.
& B O O K / C L U B debuts next Friday! (which is a change from what I said literally yesterday, because I a) made an error, and b) am launching a festival I produced this Friday and really cannot deliver anything else for sanity’s sake, and c) is for paid subscribers, which I feel weird about, but I think I mentioned last week that I’m pretty cagey about my fave-a-laves, so it’s gonna be a basically an under-the-cover bundle of inspiration, challenge, and more for your artistic, matriarchal, social, professional, or like, whatever practices.. so, yeah.)
So far, so good here, yeah?
Mine first and always,
Adrienne xx
I do in fact, stan a poetic slut. Xoxo