Hello Beautifuls,
I am humbled and thrilled by the community gathering here. Thank you for your kindness, your vulnerability and your presence.
What readers are experiencing:
“So beautiful Jocelyn. Salve for my soul today, thank you 💛”
“You say what I can’t.”
If you need a weekly balm for your tired soul, Hello Beautifuls is the perfect read as the world falls apart.
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More letters like last week’s that come through me rather than from me.
A cup the size of a belly, smooth, rounded, spun from twigs and leaves and feathers, plastic bits and human hair and dog-toy stuffing. Magic woven from a beak and instinct, soft enough to hold the fragility of eggs and babies, strong enough to withstand rain and wind, the bulging of growing legs and wings, the eventual dislodging and loss.
I never see the birds in their nests before I find them, except that one time, when the cardinals came to the maple tree in our backyard. The red father and the creamy yellow mother with her orangey-red tinted tail, wing and head feathers. They built the nest together and I waited, hopeful, for the eggs to arrive. Maybe I scared them off, or maybe it was the dog, but they never returned. The nest sat, empty, through the rest of the year and past the next mating season before I carefully pulled its foundational twigs from in between the branches and set it in my living room. A marvel of construction and beauty. A reminder of letting go.
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The realtor, a man who owns a house we used to rent, not the one with the cardinals, the one where Caly died, opened the door to his truck last night and pulled out a plastic sign with his name on it. He apologized for it being a bit dirty. It looked like gold. He reached back in and pulled out a metal frame and I watched as he used his sneakered foot to press the tines into the ground of my front yard. Our house in Austin is built on a bedrock of limestone and hard clay, that when dry, is much like stone. He ducked into his truck again and came out with a small sledge hammer. "This will be loud," he said before swinging the hammer onto the corners of the metal. It sounded like a chorus. He finished setting the sign and looked up with his grey-blue eyes and long lashes. What he said to me was, "Your house will be live in the listings tomorrow." What I heard was, "This is the doorway that will take you home."
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Later last night, on the phone with my sister, she told me about the art show she has coming up this Saturday near her home in San Francisco, about the people she knows are coming, about the strangers who have RSVP’d, her voice full of the wonder and excitement and fear that comes with being vulnerable, with showing the bones and blood and tendons of yourself to other people through the things you create. I am so close to being there. To being able to help her set up the show, to pour drinks, to take in the wonder of her and know that she is part mine.
As we wound down our chat, she asked me how long. How long until I come home once the house is on the market? I gave her some estimates, some guessed time lines based on my memories of closing on a house, and then I told her, I am already on my way.
🌈Please ❤️ this post and comment or restack it. I will always respond and love to hear your voices.
Hello Jocelyn, Gorgeous poetry. I felt the ache and beauty of it in my chest—that quiet kind of love that doesn’t always get named between sisters: showing up to pour the drinks, witness the wonder, feel the art and the artist as part of you. The way you describe her voice—full of fear and wonder—that’s exactly what it is to create with your whole self.
And this line. I am already on my way.
It speaks not only to distance and return, but to the soul’s slow, stubborn journey back to itself.
Thank you. It feels like a benediction for all of us moving toward something and someone we love, even when it’s hard.
Just beautiful, Jocelyn. You weave magic and love and wonder in every line you write. So excited for you to be living close to your sister again 💗