Much like the dead

Thank you for being here and for subscribing. I’m at a weird place in my creative and professional life and this little newsletter means a lot. I was able to pay some bills the last several months with this substack. It feels so good. I send my love out to you always. <3

You are a bird

Cardinals don't know we point at them and say "Ooooo" inside our mad heads. Someone has always died, you know. And someone always tells you about seeing red birds, blue birds, dimes, you know. It gets in your mind. Stuck up in there. Then you see one: peck peck peck at the ground, fly right by, just living. They don't know how reverent they are. Red birds appear just like love. When my father is at my house, my mother, a red bird comes to the back yard. We wave at her. I see her sometimes in the car when I am sad. At the park. Around town. I see her like a message, a sign that whispers, "You are not alone." I am freaking out that I read during courtship, the male bird, the most beautiful of the two, feeds seed to the female beak-to-beak. Beak to beak, my heart is singing. My mother would open pistachios with her full red mouth and then hand me the nut. I was once a baby bird. Love is between the mouths. But cardinals don't know how they change moments, how we gasp. They just sing out clear whistled song patterns. They just keep singing and showing up, much like the dead in our heads.

-ATS

Please tell me how you are.
Will you write something today?

ILYSM

xo

Amy