To Be Held Like This
The erotic, Sex Ed Book Club recap, new writing
Hi. It’s been a while. I know that’s on me. I’ve been transitioning and taking time to heal my heart but I am feeling reenergized after Sex Ed Book Club last night. We gathered in someone’s living room, half of us squished on the couch, the other half scattered around the floor. We talked about Uses of the Erotic by Audre Lorde. We talked about the way (most) pornography cheapens the erotic, boils it down to something plastic. We talked about how social media can dehydrate our sense of play and crowd that cavity of space that eroticism feeds on. We mulled over how to define eroticism and then realized that the need to define it is the very thing that can squash its “deepest and non-rational knowledge”.
I have been surrounded by people lately. I have been living in a house of six and am relishing in the constant, cozy activity of that. There is always something on the stove. There are plans to buy a chicken coop. Someone takes it upon themselves to build a vegetable washing station out back. Someone takes quick steps up the stairs — I can tell they’re on their toes — and pops their head into the kitchen to ask for an onion. There are open and interminable invites to dinner. I have felt held. By my house. By my friends. And last night, I felt held by community and the way we breathe aliveness back into ourselves when we put our phones away and talk about what matters.
Here is a piece I wrote about living with a friend. I was inspired to write it after my housemate sent me a piece by Anna Fusco. I have been writing more for myself lately. I have been writing to move through feelings. I read my writing back to myself out loud and let myself cry as much as I need to. I have been too raw and too in process to write for publishing’s sake, and I think it has made for some of my most exacting work.
If you’d like to be in community and talk about how to feel more alive and creative and juicy, reply with your email and I’ll add you to our email chain (#oldschool).
EVERYDAY JOY
I want it to stay just like this. Sharing shelves in the fridge. Planning dinner over breakfast. Asking each other for every day favors like turning over the laundry or picking up more eggs. There is little distinction between what’s mine and yours and I’ve come to feel so held by that. You are cooking something. Something that is simple but requires time. Something that simmers on the stove well into the evening, long enough to see us dancing in the kitchen while I fix you your favorite drink. You are quieter than our other roommate in the mornings but, unlike him, you leave the bathroom door open. I can hear you from my bed, tinkering in the cabinet, that soft ding I assume is your tongue scraper hitting the mason jar as you put it back. One of us waits for the other at the kitchen table. Buenos dias. How’d you sleep? Did you dream? These everyday questions have become everyday joys, what I’ve come to look forward to.
One of us makes morning soup. We take turns without asking because we’ve settled into a certain and syncopated rhythm. The broth heats slowly as we plan for the day. Eventually we part ways but there will still be moments of connection: when I pull the loaf of bread from its paper sleeve and laugh once I see how you’ve torn at it; washing your favorite mug; a text asking if a package came or what we want to make for dinner.
I joke about you taking my computer but, really, this kind of access marks our kinship. What’s mine is yours, I assure you, as we sit on the ledge of the couch, watching our other roommates clean up after a house show. We tighten our bond by moving and making and dreaming and scheming. At night we sit knee to knee on the couch and read to each other out loud, chewing on big ideas and heartfelt observations. We scoot around each other in our narrow bathroom as we both get ready for bed, talking through occupied teeth. You’re the first and last person I hug most days and, in the wake of searing heartbreak, I have never felt so lucky to be taken in in this way.