So many things to say and no ways to say them.
I try to coax them out anyhow. I close the door to my room and turn to a blank page. I’m poised and ready, but they do not come. I eke out some lines and then erase. I write and erase until my body jumps up and goes to the window. Fresh snow falls, covers the walkways that we shoveled yesterday, and all our tracks too. A blank white page again.
The coffee’s still warm, so I pour another cup, but it only amplifies my restlessness. Every morning, I feel it sitting on my chest like an animal looking for warmth and intimacy. Wherever I go, it follows on my heels. Even outside, I sense it watching me from the shadows. I’m beginning to realize that the shadow might be mine. The animal might be me.
I’m supposed to be good with words, but they keep coming out all wrong.
In the shower, I make the water hot, let it beat on my back as if it might dislodge whatever’s stuck. Eyes closed, I tune into the drumming on my spine. Steam rises like smoke, it fills the room. Across the shower doors, my fingers draw abstract shapes. I don’t know if they mean anything, but I stare at the indecipherable forms until my back is pink and the hot water runs out.
Maybe I need something cold, I think, so I go outside. I walk all the way to the frozen sea, dig a note-shaped hole in the ice and circle around it like a dog turning around a spot before lying. I have no interest in laying down though. I’m trying to build courage, build friction that might spark. I came for the cold but now I want fire. Fire is all I seem to want these days.
I mean what I say but cannot say what I mean.
Two fire pits squat on the shoreline. I go back and forth between them wondering if I can get one started on my own. We were here with some friends the day after Christmas, but the fire was already going. Some neighbors had come before us, and others came after us too. Fire was the thing we all walked towards, gathered around. We kept it going for a little while, and then we passed it along.
I don’t know much about tending fire, but I’m learning. It’s an element I’ve mostly been taught to fear. Fire burns. It rages and searches for tinder by which to spread. Show any sign of fire, and I’ve always been quickly put in my place. Cool yourself down, girl. Get some control.
Once you say something, you can’t unsay it.
Cold seeps into my boots. I take them off and walk towards the hole in the ice. I sit on the edge and slowly lower my legs into the blackness. Immediately they begin to burn. I don’t want to go in, not any more, but I dip a little lower. Burn, burn. Liquid fire.
Behind me I notice a flash on the horizon and think it must be a star, a guiding light, but when I look closer, I realize it’s coming from my house. In the distance, on top of a stone, my life is lit up from the inside. I’ve never seen it like this before. A beacon of warmth. The hearth that’s mine to tend.
Some things won’t fit, won’t be folded, into words.
Back home, the fire waits to be fed. Pulling the furnace door open, ashes swirl. Hot orange embers pulse at the bottom. I lay a thick log on top and watch it alight. The warmth on my face is magnificent. I get as close as I can. The flames reach out as if trying to lick my cheeks.
I want to build a fire pit outside too. A place to gather, to offer warmth and sustenance. A place where time might dissolve. Where stories can be told or retold, and songs can wiggle out of mouths, or maybe they’ll erupt, I’m not sure. Maybe all that’s needed is a chance to bask in the transmutable heat of silence.
To say nothing is to say something too.
Deeply grateful to Fire, my current teacher and element for 2025.
xx
Beth
Title image is artwork by Jess Allen – I am not just a shadow, 2022, oil on linen
