You Could Make This Place Beautiful

by Maggie Smith

How I picture it: We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside. We carry the past inside us. We take ourselves—all of our selves—wherever we go.

This is what it is to be rooted in a place, or to have a place rooted inside you: Every bit means something to someone you know, and therefore, every bit means something to you.

during labor all language was inadequate.

I crave the answer to when will it end even more than the answer to how. We can endure anything if we know when it will end.

Because I was the same and completely different.

there are no Irish exits from one’s own head—but

There is joy in surprising oneself.

I have a thing for perfume. Each day I choose a favorite from my sizeable collection—Maison Margiela By the Fireplace, Le Labo Rose 31, Henry Rose Queens & Monsters, TokyoMilk Dark Arsenic, Issey Miyaki Butterfly, Memo Paris French Leather. I leave a trace of myself, ghostlike, on my clothes, my sheets, my pillows.

“Got to Be Real,” Cheryl Lynn “I Feel for You,” Chaka Khan “She’s a Bad Mama Jama,” Carl Carlton

“Ring My Bell,” Anita Ward “More Bounce to the Ounce,” Zapp “Le Freak,” CHIC “Best of My Love,” The Emotions “You Dropped a Bomb on Me,” The Gap Band “Forget Me Nots,” Patrice Rushen “I’m Coming Out,” Diana Ross “Let’s Groove,” Earth, Wind & Fire “Xanadu,” Olivia Newton-John “Night Fever,” Bee Gees “Love Rollercoaster,” Ohio Players “Get Down on It,” Kool & The Gang

Sometimes yes looks like reminding yourself of what is still possible.

I think moms crying in bathrooms during the pandemic could be a coffee-table book. A very thick coffee-table book.

This morning I told Violet, my seven-year-old, that I know I had a dream last night but couldn’t quite remember it. She said, “Like a hawk circling your head.”

a new playlist: Waxahatchee, M. Ward, Fruit Bats, Andy Shauf, The National.

Is this why we write? To bronze the baby shoes? To save all of it?

The thing about this life: If we knew nothing of what was missing, what has been removed, it would look full and beautiful.

After my parents’ forty-eighth wedding anniversary, I thought more about long-term commitment and devotion. I thought more about the unspoken vows we make to the people we love, and how those promises hover in the air around us, touching everything we say and do. I thought more about the time I have left and the relationships I have or am yet to have. I thought more about “the scraps.” Then something else struck me: When I turn forty-eight, I will have forty-eight years in a loving relationship with my parents. When my sisters each turn forty-eight, I will have forty-eight years with them. When my children each turn forty-eight, I will have forty-eight years of being their mother. That’s as golden as it gets.

The mix CD I made to take to the hospital for Violet’s birth—the one with Welcome, Pickle! written on the mirrored disc in Sharpie—including Ray LaMontagne’s “You Are the Best Thing,” Band of Horses’ “No One’s Gonna Love You,” and Wilco’s “My Darling.” Rhett’s playlist included John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy,”

The The’s “This Is the Day,” and the Innocence Mission’s cover of “What a Wonderful World.”

always happy to hear Superchunk, The Replacements, Fruit Bats, Metric, and Teenage Fanclub—songs I love, yes, but more importantly, songs she noticed I love. It’s the audio equivalent of a hug from my daughter.