a letter from bed
hello my dears
i wrote a little letter from bed this morning. typed out below the photos.
this week should let up. i love you all so much. keep helping me hang in there. it’s a lot. you are all helping me immensely.
never have i felt so scared.
but
never have i felt so loved.
Dear Everybody,
It’s been weird lately. Anemic. I wanted to write, because I am feeling disconnected.
The summer – which was dedicated to “settling in” and “finding a routine” – became a strange blur. Ash has struggled with landing in a new world, we’ve both had culture shock and re-entry sickness in very different ways. My dad was ill and in the hospital for weeks. He got covid in there. Then I got covid. I flew my dad home to Arizona. I got back in time for Ash’s first day of school. His 7th birthday is this week. I really want him to feel normal and okay.
Coming back to America – and seeing what has really happened here while we was gone – has often felt more disorienting than comforting.
I have felt scared, sad and alienated. Like I cannot land anywhere solid.
Instead of prioritizing my artwork/business work, or my patreon in general, I have tried to prioritize the kid and my own little local chosen family here in Woodstock, so that I can feel protected, connected and less scared. There will be time for art, for music, soon enough.
The Dresden Dolls are about to kick into gear and I am going to have to prepare, rehearse, open my throat and heart so that the songs can come out in full color. I don’t feel ready. I will be ready. I know I will.
I have been the recipient of some hardcore emotional support lately, and without it, I would not have stumbled through the last few months with grace.
So am here again, on my knees, fist to my heart, sting in my eyes.
To those who have been here for me
who, though impossibly exhausted yourselves, have been
holding my hand in the dark
in person
in comments
over the phone
in a supermarket aisle
…all of you…
who have been
gently bearing witness to little Ash as he figures out his place here,
you who have been
getting me back on my yoga mat and back into my meditation practice,
helping me make food,
helping me with the dishes,
reading to me before I go to sleep,
encouraging me, cheerleading me, texting me morning music and poems to ponder and digest through the day…
thank you.
My heart is so bone tired and so very grateful. I’ve needed you. And you have been there.
All these little things you have done for me add up, and make each day a little less scary.
I really did not know what to expect, coming back here to this country, this life-situation.
It’s hard to explain how complicated it feels being back, but in the same way that I found hidden reserves of Angels in Aotearoa New Zealand, there are
angels in America,
too.
Angels everywhere.
Thank you, my angels. Thank you…
Keep folding your heavy wet wings around my shivering frame, and I will promise to do the same when my own wings aren’t fractured and plucked bare. I am almost ready to fly with you.
Love,
Amanda
