anniversaries

and books about unusual women

Hello!!

If you’ve noticed we’ve been out of your inbox the last couple of weeks, that would be, frankly, because COVID hit my household in tremendous, routine-shattering ways. To say it’s been survival mode would be an understatement. This is the first time we’ve had a confirmed positive and I’m currently swearing enmity to any and all persons who downplayed how godawful this virus is.

It was great for reading, though. Since I last wrote, I finished both White Teeth by Zadie Smith and Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust. I then gulped down The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (which my book club is reading) and Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe. I’ve missed talking about books with you!!

I don’t think I can add anything that hasn’t already been said about White Teeth, other than it was incredibly more complex than I had known to anticipate and so it took me much longer to read than I expected. It reminded me of Grey’s Anatomy in that characters were continually introduced and, as they appear, you think — oh, certainly this is just some side character who will fade into the background — but, spoiler, they never were. I have such admiration for authors who juggle that many people they’re creating from scratch.

Swann’s Way was, well, beautiful. I want to say so much more about it! I will, at some point soon, I think.

The Frozen River marked a return to historical fiction. I used to love historical fiction as a girl. Didn’t we all? There’s a real solidarity in reading about another woman’s life when that woman lived hundreds of years ago and finding your concerns and frustrations were much the same. The Frozen River is about a midwife working in the territory of Maine shortly after the American Revolution. She hails from Central Mass. — Oxford! — and the story bounces backward and forward in time as a murder mystery and rape trial play out in the midwife’s “current” timeline. I could not put this book down. I felt like I was living a double life in the best way.

Immediately afterward, I zipped through Margo’s Got Money Troubles, which came out in June and has been on my TBR ever since. It tells the story of Margo, a single mother who has an affair with her married college professor, gets pregnant, and then has to figure out how to raise a baby on her own with no job prospects and next-to-no help. It’s stressful, at times, but it’s also incredibly delightful. Margo turns to her ex-pro-wrestler father, a master of brand identity creation, and decides to open an OnlyFans account. This sounds strange and offbeat because it is, but it also evokes that cozy sitcom feeling because each of the characters is quirky and endearing. It was, frankly, a delight.

Sorry for the surface-level list here, but my brain is still turning back on, so I’ve not quite had the capacity for a deeper literary explication. However, I am about to dig into some advanced copies of books coming out in the next month or so, so expect a bit more meat in the near future. In the interim, please enjoy Kale Hensley’s essay “Anniversaries” while I turn my attention to Talk Vomit fall. Updates to come soon!

xoxo,
Monica

By Kale Hensley

It is March 20, a heavy date for a sole girl to bear. I’m not trying to cross-tote. But my, how did the timing work out that today marks the first breath of spring, the first breath of my father, and the first gust of the astrological sign, Aries. The universe always conspires toward mayhem, I am afraid. It made me Aries where it matters most, I think. In Mercury, Venus, and Sun. Is this what they call a stellium? 

Today is the beginning of personal customs. I must eat a hot dog in honor of my father’s birthday and death. I must begin my regimen of foolishness. I must take a look at my many projects and then opt to scroll through a smutty comic. I asked my students about shame today. What stops you from writing? A question from Mary Karr, what would you write if you were not afraid?

The memory that presses against my temples is one of my father, drunk. As I lay with my ear to the floor, beside sisters who also pretend to be asleep, he threatens my mother in her bedroom. But the one I choose to lean into goes like this: I am at the coffee table, a pink marbled thing with ornate legs (am I describing myself) working on a project for school. As is my nature, I probably had waited till the last second to start on it. Glue sticks rolled— my hair felt tight against my skull. I always put my hair up to work, despite the headaches such a decision induces. I have too much hair. I have recently fallen in love with it. 

A door shutting in my childhood home always aroused complicated feelings for me. My most immediate thought was, what mood will this person be in and how can I mute into the room: become leather couch, become gold and green wallpaper, become the wood flooring that carries less germs than carpet. On this particular day, my dad came in and he must’ve been working outside; he smelled green like snipped grass, like spilled gasoline. 

During the spring and summer, he cut lawns to support us. My mom would always tell me, do not let anyone make you feel bad about what your father must do. But shame, like any emotion, cannot be stopped in its tracks. It must be felt. I remember this boy next to me in reading class, a boy of glasses and terrible teeth, who I harbored a crush for until high school, mentioned my dad’s job and mimed a lawn mower to emphasize. I recall nodding and going back to my worksheet, not wanting to discuss it any further. 

But why not? When we would drive by the brick house next to the Dollar General in town, the crisp stripes reminiscent of ones you would find printed on a flag, why did my heart swell with pride? Reader, I tried to get you more details about who owned this house and yard, but it seems both I and my family have forgotten. I called my mother and sister and the exchange went something like:

“Do you remember who owns that brick house next to the Dollar General in town, I need it for an essay.”

Kyra pauses. “Let me ask mom, she’s fixing her hair…Mom, what’s the names of those old bats who live next to Dollar General?”

A silence ensues as my mom combs through her memory. A much more muted voice travels through the phone. “Oh god, who is it, I wanna think they’re Mullins?”

We do not reach a conclusion. But I do. I love the collaborative effort required of the memoir. I love that when I engage with these memories, the shame tends to loosen its hold on me. I love the tangents it thrusts me down. Because now, I can tell you, my dad cut grass extra hard one summer so that he could send me on a student trip to Europe. A downpayment of $400 was required to go, and my parents had decided to ask my grandmother for the money. But that day, as I worked on some project that ultimately would not matter (because I do not remember it), my father, dressed in jorts and a t-shirt, handed me the money, wads of leather and sweat.

“I want to be the one to pay for it.” He said.

What does a child do with that much money? I just looked up to him and cried thank you, thank you. Like the Christ, I wept. And remarkably, my dad began to tear up too. This was the first and only time I ever saw him cry. My chest leaps now at the thought of such tenderness.

“Stop,” he begged. “You are going to make me cry.” 

But I kept weeping. I cried fat, hot tears. I snotted in disbelief. When drunk, he so often said he did not love any of us. So what was this? 

Memory is funny. It likes to take the shape of a scale, show you the equivocal.

Many, many months ago, I sat on a sofa with a man whom I was afraid to name my feelings for. I knew I loved his words, pesky, budded little things that clung to the mind like lint to panty hose. I loved sitting near him as he read. His voice fell on the ears like satin. I can only compare the feeling to wanting to put your face to a tortilla shell so you can know the depth of its softness (which I have done, without shame). But my words only scratched the surface. 

I love your body, I shared, to which he said, remember, no falling in love. I said but this is different, I can love things about you. And god, didn’t I love his lack of shame, to wander outside naked, wrapped only in a blanket to grab something from the car? If bliss were meant to last, then we would not call it bliss, would we? That night was behind us. Now, I had to confront this surge of anger that had leapt on me. An anger I felt silly for. He was not bound to me in any regard, and yet I was bereft.

I said something between “I am trying not to cry.” and “I do not want to cry.” and “Oh god, I think I might cry.” But I remember his words clearly.

“Don’t cry.” 

And there it was, the staggering breath that left my body said everything. I could not do this. I could not be a man’s mistress. I fell deep into my grief.  

“I think I am beginning to fall in love with you.” I said, and the weight took wings and left my chest.  

And to that confession, he sat straight up. I can see it. He had been lounging on the couch till that moment. My coffee sat on the kitchen counter of my Airbnb, hardly touched. Was there an oh falling from his mouth? Why did his eyes seem to light up? 

Was this when I began to weep? Was this when he came to stand behind me and rub my shoulders, touch my breasts, and kiss me? Reader, I asked him about the memory in an email. That is the only way we can speak these days, across a plane impersonal where a trash bin is within a click’s reach. I asked him if he too had tears in his eyes that morning. He never answered. This is the only tenderness he can reserve for me. 

As I wrote this essay, I became afraid to put my name on it. Because I was afraid to admit it; somehow, in a round about way, I had become my father. I had become the extra appendage in someone else’s relationship. I had been cut off when convenience deemed it. Dad, you were not a poet, but you were honest. And you were loved, which is all you wanted. All we wanted. So what now?  

What was that rules of threes?

Yes, on the day which you celebrate your father’s birth and death, you must eat three hot dogs. One for him, one for you, and one more to fill your stomach up to your chest.

(Note: The family that owns the Dollar General in Chapmanville, WV were the Dingesses. I told you I would make good on my promise.)

Kale Hensley is a West Virginian by birth and a poet by faith. You can keep up with them at kalehens.com.