Creepsake #21

A memento meant to become evident gradually

I have been thinking a lot about withholding. What I withhold from sharing here, what I withhold from sharing with my loved ones, what I withhold about seeing in myself. That likely comes as no surprise to those of you who have been reading Creepsakes for the last year and a half; that likely comes as no surprise to those of you who have ever read anything I’ve written.

I have projects I do not share because I have not finished them, and I hate sharing work in-progress (shout out only to Jenny and Sara, who see drafts long before I consider them done!!!). I also have projects I do not share because I am not ready to answer for them. I withhold them from the public because the public eye is wide and devouring and the projects still feel too tender, too sensitive. I want those projects to be viewed only through a half-closed aperture, which is how I look at them myself: narrowed to the way I want them to be understood. Until I can stomach the wide lens, they will be withheld.

Between the last full moon and this one—the personally-sacred Aquarius full moon which has, historically, poured its soft white light over both me and my work to show me the projects I need to see—I performed possibly one of the creepiest acts of creepsakery (which, AS YOU KNOW, is SAYING SOMETHING): I traveled back to one of my homes and spent three days pondering it. The trip was a “vacation,” which is another way of saying I did not take it as a work project, which is another way of saying I told myself I did not have to record or write anything; I would not have to justify the time away by calling it “research” or “a self-directed residency” where I would carefully track my word count and then shake my own hand at the end, pleased with what I had completed, then withholding the product because the process was sufficient.

I let myself go home because I wanted to go home, because I wanted to go home by myself to a home where I would be alone, to a home where no one has lived for over thirty years, to a home where I could creep around the town without answering to anyone why I wanted to go down this street, then that street. I let myself go home by myself to escape answers. There was no one to whom I had to explain, “because ___ lived there.” I did not have to confess that I simply had to see ___ again to remind myself it was real, it had existed. No one from whom I had to shield my naked heart.

So many details I am withholding even now. Maybe because I think I might end up wanting them for a project. Or maybe because it would break my heart to see myself try to write them out, to put ___ into “words” that won’t show how the sight of ___ still makes my breath catch, words I worry would make ___ corporeal and defined instead of evoking the infinitesimal vapor of a memory that only released when I saw it again.

Something concrete, then: I did go to my old house. I will show you the shaky video, bumping up and down because I held my phone’s camera out as I walked down my street. You will see an edged lawn and flower clumps. As I approach the property, the sun refracts on the lens before the video cuts out.

The rest belongs to me.