Now sewing brings the pain back, eases it. It reveals holes in my
– Stephanie Sauer, Almonds are Members of the Peach Family
own loving.
When I first loved, there were no holes, save for myself. I gave everything, kept nothing, a firehose emptying every well. I was the hole, and I wore it well.
When I noticed the whole of my emptiness and its longing, I found another firehose, and we collapsed together every night, soaked and wholly hollow.
I called this life without holes.
(It was not.)
There is no avoiding holes. I am a mess of holes, so there is a mess of holes in my loving.
I learned to love people who see my holes and see me through their own. The stinging bliss of love is seeing yourself through someone else’s holes—that is to say, an accounting of every lack, a negotiation of our respective failures.
I want to love both others and myself wholly and with minimal failing, so this accounting is a thorny gift we open tenderly together.
Loving reveals holes in my own loving. I cannot fill them. In my wholeness, I move them somewhere safer, and hold them somewhat gentler.
