Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
My skin that is feeling more sensitive, awake, and alive the longer I’m away from Kai.
I hadn’t realized how cut off from my body I’d become until the numbness from being constantly on my guard started to fade.
Now, my skin tingles at every breeze, my taste buds dance, and creative energy vibrates in my bones, surging back to life after years of lying fallow. I mean, I’ve written songs. Lots of them. I produced new material pretty consistently through the dark years—was even nominated for a Grammy for a ballad I co-wrote with my friend, Shaima, last summer—but the music didn’t touch me the same way anymore.
In my steadier moments, I assumed I’d simply reached a less volatile, more mature stage in my evolution as an artist. In the less steady ones, I feared that a part of my soul had shriveled and died on the vine and would never bear soul-feeding fruit again.
But I was wrong.
Thank God, I was wrong. Even if I never find love with a man again, reconnecting with this long-lost creative magic will be enough to keep me going.
More than enough.
My fingers find the chords, riffing through familiar combinations, then new ones. I play with the time signature, then shift into a different key, the slide from C major to A minor sending a melody surging out of me in a rush.
I find the words next.
Words about a harvest I thought I’d lost, about dark fruit that never gave life, about Demeter with a heart full of fire, charging into the underworld to demand her daughter’s freedom.
Fuck Hades and his tricks.
Fuck his kingdom and his rules.
Either he returns Persephone to her family and to herself, or Demeter is going to burn it all to the ground. And Persephone is right there, singing back to her mother, telling her to strike the tinder, insisting she’d rather die in the pyre than live another day in captivity.
I work through the verses, the bridge, the hook, whisper-singing so I won’t disturb Charlotte.
And because I’m a superstitious creative weirdo.
I can’t share a new song with anyone else until it’s nearly done—until I’ve birthed it, nurtured it, and feel confident it can stand on its own two feet.
By the time I’m done, tears are streaming down my cheeks again, but they aren’t sad tears. This isn’t mourning. This is the celebration that comes with rising from the grave, a gratitude so beautiful it hurts.
Because you know what it’s like to be dead. To be cold and alone, with no magic left in your bones, and no hope that it will ever return.
But it did, and now…
Well, now, you’re so alive you barely know what to do with yourself.
And you’re weirdly…horny.
My humming, buzzing, vibrating awakening continues on Sunday, as Charlotte and I join some of the hockey-adjacent friends at Café Emelie.
The brunch spot is tucked into a courtyard that shields us from the increasingly brisk breeze. Brick walls covered in climbing vines surround us on three sides as we perch on mismatched vintage chairs, sipping mimosas that arrive in old-fashioned glasses Makena calls “boobie cups.”
“Because look,” she says, leaning her chest over her now-empty glass halfway through the meal. “It’s the perfect size to put a boobie in there.”
“Maybe one of yours,” I say, the bubbles making me bold. “Some of us could fit both our boobies in there.”
“Oh, girl, stop,” Makena says. “I’m totally a member of the itty-bitty tittie committee. Get one more drink in me, and I’ll lift my sweater and show you.”
We all laugh, then laugh harder as Makena insists she’s not kidding, and Elly seconds that, warning us not to encourage her.
“We’re already banned from my other favorite brunch spot,” Elly says, shooting a mock glare Makena’s way. “Since somebody had to pick a pastry fight with the chef.”
Makena lifts her nose into the air with a prim sniff. “It wasn’t a pastry fight. It was a Dutch baby fight, and it’s not my fault that he’s a sore loser. I won the taste test fair and square.”
“You did,” Elly admits fondly. “I was very proud. Sad that I can’t grab biscuits and gravy there anymore, but proud.”
“I’ve got your biscuits and gravy right here, woman,” Mack insists. “My biscuits are way better than Chef Poo Poo Pants’ biscuits.”
“You can’t cook all the food for everyone all the time,” Charlotte cuts in, reasonably. “We do have to seek out nourishment and yumminess elsewhere from time to time.”
Makena bleats in protest around a bite of crepe.
“We do,” Elly agrees. “Especially since you’ve started closing the food truck at five to get home to bottle feed the raccoon.”
“He’s just a baby!” Makena protests with a vehemence that makes us all laugh. “You want me to starve the baby so you can get po’ boys after five p.m.! Are you a literal monster, Eloise Thibodeaux Graves?”