Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?
Text me when you get there. Do you want some food? Do you need anything? Hurry, come in, it’s cold outside. Are you hungry? Do you need a hug? I saw this and thought of you. I knew that would make you laugh. Be careful, people drive like maniacs.
What is the greatest gift someone could give you?
Treat me with a kindness
That you would also seek
Understand what the meaning is
In the words that I don’t speak
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And he said, “I just watched that film
Again.
And as I recall
I think
You also liked it.”
And I said, “That’s weird. I just watched that film
Again.
And yes I
I did
I really liked it.”
And he said, “Well then
That’s the one thing we had.”
©️2023 itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved.
Inspired by:
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Song by Deep Blue Something
You'll say we've got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we're falling apart
You'll say the world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
Still I know you just don't care
And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"
I see you, the only one who knew me
But now your eyes see through me
I guess I was wrong
So what now? It's plain to see we're over
And I hate when things are over
When so much is left undone
And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"
You'll say that we've got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we're falling apart
You'll say the world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
Still I know you just don't care
And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"
Ooh, and I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"
And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Todd David Pipes
Breakfast at Tiffany's lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc
Describe a *person* who has positively impacted your life.
She was both mother and father. Even when my father was alive, my mother was my father. Everything good that I’ve learned, I’ve learned from her. It was not a perfect relationship, but she was my best friend, and positively affected my life. My father, for his part, gave me these hands and these eyes, and this technical brain. Don’t get me wrong, he was impactful. Sort of like an asteroid hitting earth. Someone wise once said, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” Mary Oliver.
Thanks for the darkness, dad.
Thanks for the light, Mom.
Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?
When I told you
I dream of visiting Paris
And you said
Everyone should visit Paris once
You will love it
My heart splintered
You didn’t say we
I knew
It would never be with you
©️2023 itsamyisaid.com, All Rights Reserved.
I’m sorry it took so long
I thought I had more springs
More blooms
More time
But your tree is dying
And it won’t see another spring
There won’t be more blooms
So
I put you there today
Mixed with that special soil
So you don’t kill the tree
That is already dying
Don’t worry
When it dies
I will plant
Another
You will help it grow
✨October 20, 2023✨
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January 2023
I lead everyone upstairs to the room that used to be my mom’s. It’s a sitting room now, done in shades of champagne pink, with a green and pink floral patterned throw rug, photos hanging on all of the walls, plants, and a few stuffed animals. The door opens, and Big Sis runs in, smiles widely with eyes even wider, “I love this! And this! And this…” she exclaims as she touches the pink office chairs, the pink chaise, and engulfs my large stuffed, Hello Kitty. She struggles to contain it in the cradle of her left arm. She then picks up my smaller stuffed alpaca and shoves it under her other arm.
She remains transfixed by the room’s contents.
A discussion erupts about Aunt Amy’s “slight obsession” with Hello Kitty (it didn’t help I wore a Hello Kitty shirt that day) and Big Sis – now deftly carrying a stuffed animal under each arm – eagerly searches to find each Hello Kitty object in the room, as if playing “Where’s Waldo?”
“There are more downstairs,” I grin.
Later, after we pry Big Sis from the room, we return to the living room, where we continue to chat. Lil Sis notices my battery-powered window candles, and that they are uniquely adorned.
She is petite, she’s barely grown in the three years since I’ve seen her, so she looks up at me, sideways, judgmental even, speaking out of the side of her mouth like some kind of child gangster, with a heavy Valley Girl accent, “There are googly eyes on your candles,” she says with emphasis, as if each word were a complete sentence.
I saw a slight eye roll.
I beamed and said, “Yes!” She slowly shook her head. I continued: “Well, they were wearing sweaters, but I took those off after Christmas.” I looked to her for a response. She stared up at me, dumbfounded. “Sweaters? Oh my gosh.” Full eye roll commenced.
I hid a smirk.
I reflect now on the details of our visit. All three kids have different interactions with me, and much of that is based on how much they remember me. Lil Bro likely remembers little of me and no personal recollection of my mother, the latter of which saddens me a bit. Lil Sis has a memory of me, but it is likely limited, as is her memory of my mother. Big Sis remembers all, and runs to greet me with a huge smile. I think she remembers my mom, and that makes my heart swell. That there is a photo hanging in their home of my mom and me, each of us holding one girl (Lil Sis on Mom’s lap, Big Sis on mine), surprises and touches me. Oh, how my mother would be delighted.
Nearing the end of their visit, I feel my mother’s joy as I relay to the group that no one wants my mom’s piano, and I am having a hard time finding a new home for it. Big Sis’s mom and dad both say they will take it, as Big Sis wants to learn. I could almost hear my piano-teaching mother’s excitement, and I felt gratitude for an old tradition now wrapped in a new chapter.
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When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
I realized, after the death of my mother, I was rendered an orphan. It’s not a club I wanted a complimentary membership to. But it’s an unavoidable membership for most of us. When the realization hits, no matter one’s age – though admittedly, being a child and experiencing this would be devastatingly traumatic – it is felt like an inexplicable heaviness in the chest that seeps its way down to the ends of the toes. Because what is really happening is one is facing one’s own mortality. And if that doesn’t make you feel like an adult, nothing will.
I loved you when
the air turned colder
Was it October
Or November?
Through another
and two,
no
three
summers
I waited
It turned cold again
The air,
you
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Bliss. It’s what I would call the feeling I had from the moment I woke, that day we went to that small town, walking up and down the street, looking for the shop that wasn’t there. The wind swept us both like a wide, cold broom aimed high, and we cursed about the damned map. Bliss told me to wear the flowing red top I bought in the kids’ department at Kohl’s because I needed to feel the freedom in the flowing. As we drove around trying to find the miniature golf course, Bliss told me I was on an adventure, that it was time, my old nemesis anxiety would not come knocking that day. Bliss knew.
Bliss led us to play both courses that day. With tempered excitement novelty brings, we curiously looked ahead at the direction of each hole, the layout of the greens, discussing and preparing exactly how to make the shot under par. It worked for me. It didn’t work for you. But you weren’t bothered by it; you had Bliss, too. I eagerly kept score as we made rules for what happens when your ball flies out of the green into the water two holes over (do-over, from the tee), and I blissfully juggled my purse, the scorecard and that little pencil over 41 holes of golf.
Then there was the moment, which passed, just as time did those two weeks, far too quickly. The sun was shining through the tree canopy above, an early spring sun, peeking in and out of the clouds, as we played each hole and I continued to win, my Bliss increasing. It was among these tree shadows where my brain’s camera takes a still and it leaves me at a cliffhanger. You stand in front of me, the sun peeking down on your red-blond hair, in this deserted, tree-covered miniature golf course, smirking at me as you do, sunglasses hiding your eyes, but I can see them when I close mine. We are close, close enough for me to see my own smirk in your glasses. Bliss tells me to kiss you, and I think in that moment, you were expecting it.
A kiss lands. Just to the left of your mouth.
“That’s for losing,” I said cheerfully, trying to evoke Bliss about what I’d done, but feeling as if I’d plotted the wrong point on the map, instantly realizing I should have aimed for the lips and may have missed my chance forever. “Good,” you said with unusual inflection, still smirking, seemingly expecting something else, something more.
When we embraced earlier in the week, soon after you had arrived, Bliss was with me then, and I said quietly, “I’m so glad you’re here.” I meant something else, something more. When you replied just as quietly, “Me, too,” Bliss wants me to believe you meant something else too, something more.
Dedikert til A.
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“It's Amy,” I said. 