You Could Make This Place Beautiful

by Maggie Smith

What I wanted from my husband was the truth. I asked for it, and I waited for it, and eventually I stopped waiting. What I was given was something different. It was shaped like it’s-not-what-you-think. It held the weight of you-don’t-understand.

Already, it was so: the scent of orange blossoms at the window, sun-jostled, bearing the sting of the finite. I thought of birds in those branches as jewels, hard, refracting light onto our walls, and knew whatever gleaming they may have done was not for us. Knowledge came disguised in sweetness and with such ease, it astonished. We knew, eventually, we would want different things. Then we started wanting them.

For months, maybe even years, I folded and folded my happiness until I couldn’t fold it anymore, until it fit under my tongue, and I held it there. I kept silent in order to hold it. I taught myself to read his face and dim mine, a good mirror.

I’m trying so hard to forgive. I’m wishing hard for peace in every superstitious way. Wishing for it deep inside me, where the truest things live. In the end, I let it stand. Stet, as we write when we don’t want our words changed. I let it stand because I’m trying to tell you the truth. My truth. I’m trying to show you my hands, even when my hands are burning.

I could say that yes, it’s sometimes lonely doing it on my own. But feeling lonely when you’re with your partner is worse than being alone. Being with someone who doesn’t want the best for you is worse than being alone. I could say that when I think about my dream partner, what I want in that person is so basic, so low-bar, I’m almost ashamed to say it out loud: Someone who’s happy to see me. Someone who smiles when I walk into a room. Someone who can be happy with me and for me—

The thing about birds: If we knew nothing of jays or wrens or sparrows, we’d believe the trees were singing, as if each tree has its own song. The thing about this life: If we knew nothing of what was missing, what has been removed, it would look full and beautiful.

But the more time passed, the less I hurt. The less I hurt, the more I was able to see how beautiful, how full, my life was. I felt myself smiling as I walked in my neighborhood. My eyes followed the calls of birds to find them in the trees—grackles, woodpeckers, crows, robins, blue jays, cardinals. I’d built a life in which my days were like this: taking long walks, writing, mothering, cackling over coffee or cocktails with friends, sleeping alone some nights, being held close by someone I loved other nights. I was unfolding, learning to take up space. Life began to feel open enough, elastic enough, to contain whatever I might choose for it.

What now? I am out with lanterns, looking for myself. But here’s the thing about carrying light with you: No matter where you go, and no matter what you find—or don’t find—you change the darkness just by entering it. You clear a path through it.