Bumper Stickers and Playground Fighting

All is welcome

I saw a bumper sticker the other day at a traffic light. It was a black sedan, I can’t remember which make, but the bumper sticker read, “Don’t honk at me, my mom is dead.” I laughed and thought, ahh perfection. It sums it up. After your mom dies, it just kind of permeates life for the foreseeable future.

I have wanted to write for a while but couldn’t sit down to do it. The grief still permeates everything almost a year later and all my mind can think is, “Seja, for Pete’s sake, move on. Write about something else.” That’s the funny thing about minds - they’re always a little disconnected from the rest of the body, including the heart. There is a line that connects the two And my mind is so good at also being like, “Ignore her. She is so soft.”

I always find my way back to my chest, though, no matter how much my mind dislikes it.

My heart sent a message the other day to my mind that it could not ignore. It said, “Watch ‘Hamnet.’ Watch it alone in the dark.” So last Friday, I did. And it did all of the things my heart needed. It felt all of it, sobbed thoughout it. The end did me in. Max Richter’s On The Nature of Daylight didn’t help. (The song that plays at the end, for those who haven’t seen it.). This song is also featured in my favorite movie, Arrival. It just brings it all home.

My youngest moves out next week. I am very sad and also very excited for her. Life expanding in all senses. It also means Joe and I will officially have an ‘empty nest’, which term I just kind of loathe. How about Joe and I now have space for a bigger party and places for people to sleep when they are too tired or partied out to drive home? I like that so much more.

My oldest daugher, Maddie, is now my son, Jude, and my placement of that fact in this writing is tied directly to how we feel about it. It is, was, a natural part of things. For anyone that has known Jude at all knows this is a natural coming into his truest nature. From the time he could voice his preference, he has chosen male-leaning things. That sounds dumb and it is, because what does that mean? It means he has chosen pants and ties over dresses. Close-cropped hair over ponytails. It is more than just appearance, though. It is the true essence of who he is expressed. Anyone who has known Jude, ever, knows the beauty of his heart, the love he holds for those around him, his sense of humor. He is so much more than his gender and yet, this is who he is fully himself and so we celebrate it. And also, when I write about Jude, you know who I am talking about.

I also have two new rules for society - if you are prejudiced against an entire group of people and have no close ties or relationships within that group, someone in that population moves in with you for six months, and 2) if you are mean online, you have to fight that person in real life at the play gound closest to your house.

Not really, but kind of something like that. An in-person debate? A trivia contest on Important Women in US History? I am open to suggestions.

The tomatoes are coming in gradually and spotty this year. A few of my plants are turning them out daily, the green ripening into red overnight. Others have decided to not produce anything at all and I get it. Every part of life needs rest or signs up for something and then changes their mind altogether.

The summer sunsets have been full and beautiful this year, the heat seemingly burning off at end of day in the pink and magenta August skies. I haven’t posted them as much this year. I have been sitting on my porch without my phone, instead, either sitting in silence or talking to my dead mom. It’s been really healing. And yet, I still talk about her. And I am okay with that now. Even after the grief is gone - is it ever really 100% gone? - I will still talk to her and about her.

This life. And death. It’s funny how grief and death make life feel more full. For me, it’s the emotion that I now carry with me each day. I used to avoid it. I would not watch the super sad movie - such hard emotions to hold. Now I welcome them. What is better in life than really feeling something? What is better than watching the thrill of victory and agony of defeat? Youngest child moving out? First born truly becoming who they’ve always been? Dead mom? Fighting on play grounds with people who virtually trash talk what I write? Yes, I say yes. I am here for all of it.