In November 2010, I left Boston. Heartbroken.
I moved back into my parents' home, the parsonage, into the basement that I knew when I was sixteen. I cried a lot that month, and sat on the couch where I'd experienced my first (thoroughly awkward) kiss. I didn't have much to say, except to mourn. The words I could muster manifested themselves in a complex indigo, private.
So I baked. A whole lot. More even than before. I played with several kinds of scones and cookies and biscotti and bread and eclairs and cakes and buttercreams and macarons and... and... When I felt powerless to pull anything beautiful out of my own life, I let my hands move independent of me.
I tried to pull myself out of my grief with online dating. I wanted to scream the whole time I applied my makeup. I wanted to wear a snow suit that utterly covered my form or no clothing at all, to teach myself to separate from the body that trapped me. I slammed the door as I left the house.
I gave up.
And finally said: there are worse things than living like Emily Dickinson, small. Cheerful donater of flowers and baked goods to neighbor children with a secretly cultivated garden heart tucked in a chest for someone to find much, much later. There are worse things.
