When your hero transforms into a white feather

In which I clean out my closets and give away 180 books whilst in mourning:: ORIGINALLY PUBLiSHED OCTOBER 10th 2024

Dear soft heart,

We’ve been deep cleaning closets, cabinets, and purging belongings over at our house. The guideline has been have you used this thing in the last 2 years? If no, it can be sold, or donated. If it’s beyond broken or expired, of course, it’s a toss.

This has been good for me because grief upped my anxiety big time, and also set me back in my autistic burn out recovery and triggered a huge POTS flare that has been scary AF to manage. POTS flares are super common with stress, among other factors such as illness or heat. Doing something with my hands and sitting sorting stuff is a good way to both decrease the POTS symptoms (by sitting or laying down) and also regulate to find some safety internally.

Out here tryna get blood to my brain. Love this graph from the york rehab clinic. I recently learnt that in POTS, what is often happening is an excess of norepinephrine signaling, which happens when the transportation of this gets altered - something called the NET. Good info on that here including other root cause theories/ studies for POTS: https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/genetic-basis-for-pots-getting-to-the-root-cause/

There were electronics to sort through, old essential oil bottles, art supplies, tinctures and tea remnants I couldn’t stomach when I was first learning and experimenting with herbs a couple years ago, and so many journals. And then, the things that stopped me in my tracks: the cards and the souvenirs.

For a few days, I tracked my life through these containers in which I have stuffed decades worth of cards, VHS tapes, and keepsakes into. Two of my grandparents do not write much. I have no cards from them, instead I have home videos on cassettes. But the other two do write, and it’s poetic and loving and engulfing. They say things like we love you more than our own lives. I was loved like that – I know it. I decide to keep a few, to have their handwriting with me. My father writes to me the way I wish he treated me always. In the cards from my brother, he tells me that he feels like he belongs because I exist, and I am reminded of his eerie wisdom, one that is otherworldly and that he has always possessed. My mother’s guilt pierces through cards, her wishes that she cannot fulfil. Sometimes, they are apologetic. I wish I could give you this she says, and then names the thing she cannot give. Some of it is practical, other times she speaks in metaphors – I wish I could give you the stars, the whole sky, the universe. It makes my heart squeeze. She’s like this, isn’t she? She never thinks she does enough when all she does is give me the whole world.

There are letters from someone I loved, who begged me to keep us lodged in my throat because we were a sin, one page where she says, I love you with everything I have. There are love letters from boyfriends telling me they are not going anywhere when they already have. Friends I’ve shared years of my life with tell me of things they appreciate that I forgot I had given; they talk about how good dinner was and how I’ve made them feel and what I mean to them, they write to me about wishes and their truths, some I don’t see clearly until now, and they say the sweetest things and I am grateful for it all. That is, living an imperfect life and being able to hold proof of it between my hands.

One of the best parts comes when there are the letters and the birthday cards and the valentines from Karly that make me laugh out loud sitting on the patio, with an iced coconut water, sorting them out, as if she hadn’t written this 10 years ago, but only 10 minutes ago. The ones where she asks me to just hear her out, what if we got married? She’s printed and tapped a picture of Ellen and Portia – this could be us - she suggests with an arrow pointing to them. Now both of us, evidently queer, with women who are not each other, it all tracks and it makes me laugh and smile and feel so seen – all these gay pieces of memorabilia.

Queer women literally stapling valentines day cards together… iconic.

Next, I did the absolutely wild thing of purging my books. I do this every couple of years, to make more room on my shelves, and also to donate books to the local library or to gift to loved ones. I had not done a good ole book purge like this since 2017. Seven whole years of collecting books – who have I been for these 7 years? The titles reveal it all. I feel profoundly grateful for the access of reading books. Being a nerd is an immense privilege.

I was starting out with about 250 books on my shelves and I donated, gifted or got rid of about 180 of them. GASP!!! The ones I kept are the ones I refer to pretty often or would absolutely read again currently. I was surprised when I decided to donate a copy of The Time Traveler’s wife, one of my favorite books of all time, that I had kept for probably 15 years. It was just time. I didn’t think I’d read it again, or perhaps it’s that I’ve read it enough times in this lifetime.

I am very emotionally attached to my books. I’d say even more so in the years that just passed. My books have been my worlds through the pandemic. So when I knew I had to make room and clean up, it was cool to see me go, less afraid – something I have resisted so intensely prior to this huge grief portal in my life with the passing of my Papi. I gifted some of my esteemed autistic book collection to an autistic friend. I gave some of my favorite contemporary fiction, self-help and spirituality books to my girlfriend. I texted one of my body work practitioners that is treating me for my injury and asked if she liked rom coms books and brought her an entire overflowing bag full at my next appointment. And we dropped off the rest to donate at the local thrift shop and public library. I hope whoever reads them next loves them as much as I did.

Donation and gift bags.

After that, we tackled memory items. We had these huge red bins filled with childhood, and teenage hood memories – crafts, toys, milestones stuff, and the like. I looked through my yearbooks, my middle school one where I am nicknamed: Little Princess - some things never change. And my high school ones where people I have lost touch with remind me of inside jokes that make me crack a half smile and give me compliments in their inscriptions before they wish me a fun summer. There was one particular memory box in the storage closet that contained in no particular order: stuffed animals, a purple banded wristwatch that I remembered instantly (I fucking loved how chic it made me feel to wear it), a small Disney purse, my first piggy bank, my first wallet, a Tamagotchi, the SIMS, a barbie and a Bratz doll. It was like stepping right into 2004. It also had my old collection of marbles (I was a weird kid.) There were also a bunch of amazing photo booth pictures. I had clearly not used these things in 2 years, so it was time to do some clearing. But first, I was like, are the original Tamagotchis worth a fortune? Am I never going to have to worry about money ever again?!!!

I was basically like Ilana in that episode of Broad city when her and Abby go to Abby’s dad house and find the highly desired collection of Beanie Babies in her only child room.

Broad city - the episode when Ilana tries to get rich off beanie babies they find in Abby’s childhood bedroom. Got this amazing pic from vulture and this article talking about all the best gags of broad city. I mean, has there ever been a funnier show fr?! Should rewatch very soon.

Turns out no; they are not. They are only worth $100-200 at max if they also include the original packaging, which mine did not. It was also chipped and looked like it’s been through it. So into the recycling it went.

In the 6th grade. Was nicknamed: little princess… still true. Voted most likely to be an international gymnast. No, just very hypermobile.

Over the spring, I set out to do the project of organizing my entire photo memory collection in order to pick out photos for my Papi’s and my Mamie’s letters. Following Papi’s death, Mamie and I chatted for a while, which I felt extremely lucky for as she is in and out of consciousness at this point in her illness progression, and she told me she loved my project so much. In fact, she validated me so much too which I was not expecting. She was like, that must have taken you so long! And I said, oh my god it totally did. And then I told her all of steps and all the ways I wanted to make it special for them. It was like I was eight again and I had just come home from school and she was waiting for me to call just so I could tell her all the details of what I felt, and what I thought and what I did. It was amazing. I loved it. Eventually, after a long while, we said goodbye by each making extremely loud kissing noises into the phone. I was then so overstimulated that I did not sleep all night. :’-)

Why is the little baby foot on the elbow the most tender thing? I created a bunch of letters that had themes for Papi - this one says the most hilarious stories you told me in French. I paired each of the letters with some photos.

When Papi died, I was asked to share any photos of him that I wanted to contribute to his celebration of life posters. Thankfully, I had already organized it all through years and categories back in the spring and I had much to contribute.

So much affection.

If I am honest, I was always deeply curious and also deeply afraid of losing someone who was very close to me. In the first days and weeks of his death, I actually felt infinitely closer to him. Closer than I had in years. I could literally feel that we do not ever really die. Everything I had ever heard in all the Esther Hicks presentations were true.

While I am very familiar with disenfranchised grief, which is to say, grief that is not supported through cultural norms, for example, estrangement due to abuse or addiction or illness related grief, grief for Papi is different. To have been someone’s little girl and to lose them has inflamed my nerves, made me extremely dizzy and also, expanded my heart. I feel his presence with me when I am in the car especially, windows down. Car rides were some of our most bonding moments when he was earth side, and it’s like he is joining me here and saying to me; I am okay, I am free now. I understand now the things I did not before. I began to tear up when I felt that drop in for me.

The weather was so pretty after he passed. I kept telling Papi that he died at such a nice time of the year. It’s like he made up for being born in a snowstorm at the beginning of February. It would have been much harder to go through the early days of his death without the resource of beautiful golden light between the fading green tree leaves. Or the breeze hugging my skin. Or the scent of late summer hydrangeas floating around.

The night he died, I made him a headstone with painting paper. I wrote his birthday and his death day and I wrote how old he was when he died. I wrote who I was to him, “Papi’s girl”, and I drew a white feather with a little tip of grey and black.

I looked at the last picture I have of him. His hair is literally the exact color as the feather I first saw the day he died floating across from me, the one that felt like someone was saying hello… or goodbye. I am now realizing he was saying both at the same time.

Since the day of his death, white feathers have been following me. Some magically appear on the bathroom floor, on the kitchen table, in the lake, in the stairs, near my favorite tree. Oh, here’s another one, in my purse, how did it get there? When I write an essay about the loss of my hero, listening to Elvis non-stop, I turn around to see one that I swear wasn’t there before in my supplement tray after I publish. You liked it? I ask him out loud. The feather does not move.

Feather spotting.

It’s not sneaking off together to a diner to split omelettes and potato plates with reckless abandon, and coloring on the brown kraft paper that is acting like a tablecloth they’d give us with wax pencils until we are full and satisfied and made a masterpiece, and perhaps played a few rounds of tic tac toe, but it’s saying to me, that meant the world to me too.

Papi and I in 2011