I write myself notes. I leave them in my bullet journals and my writing journals and the notes app on my phone. I’ve got nests of blank receipt tape and folded church bulletins and geometrically torn sections of magazine pages squirreled away in the journals of the past. These notes are all pieces of my life. I use them to talk to myself about how I want to live and who I want to be, but most importantly I use them to tell myself to remember this, and this, and this.

These bits of writing are usually not about me, but they are very much of me. They’re stories or poems or plans for projects I want to work on down the line, reminders of the artist and writer I want to grow to be. And also, sometimes, reminders of the type of friend or lover I want to grow to be, whenever I stop being so afraid. I’m afraid of a lot of relationships these days, even the ones I have with my own words.

For instance, this is a note I wrote to myself the last time I was trying to remind me that I might already be the good and loving type of person I think my loved ones and my words deserve.

There’s a line in the sand
that curves like a rib,
arc of a bird
wheeling out from the shore,
sweep of a cliff over blue arteries.

All things with wings
can snatch the want from the wind,
so step off, heart,
cross this,
resist the urge to dig in.

This is the shore that
taught you its rhythm,
but history won’t let you
make it your home,
keep moving,
keep yourself in desire.

At every wingspan’s depression
you’ll think this was a mistake,
think this lonely fall
is all you know, think,
what’s the point of loving
the sky if it won’t hold you

It won’t hold you,
but step off, heart,
follow your purpose;
there is no shame in doing
what you were made to do.

It’s not a lesson I took to heart that time, but I will eventually. I do not always trust my future self, but I believe in her. I believe the memories and fictions and small every day beauties she carries with her will one day grow wings and that she will be able to comfortably move through the world with her head in the clouds and her coat fluttering with the moth-like creations she’s crafted and shared.

As with all nocturnal worries
one begets, one begets
until a black and grey coat
becomes beige and brown and slate
wings beading with rain, light like dew
embodying the magic that
young girls learn to yearn for
when the moon is the brightest
thing about them.

So I’m writing myself more reminders, only this time I’m doing them with focused care and purpose. This time I’m going to take a universe that’s lived inside my head for several years and let it go one small piece at a time until I can collect the sum of it into a chapbook. In the finished collection there will be poems and short fictions. There will be many characters with different concerns and priorities and relationships to the stars. Every one of them will yearn though, because I am still yearning, because the night sky is vast and there is much to yearn for.

I want to invite you to join me in seeing this through. Together we will explore different people and different pieces of my memory and the memory of the world. I’ve put together a Patreon that will house this project and hopefully many others. There’s a post on the page that explains the inspiration for this first work and talks about the stories and reminders it sprung from.

>>LARA ECKENER IS CREATING POETRY AND PROSE <<

There’s a double purpose to using a Patreon campaign over say, just collecting the work here and taking requests for hand bound books from those who might want them. Many of the notes I’ve written to myself over the last several years have been about how deeply I miss my home. I’m working to move back there and honestly can use any monetary help I can get toward that goal. The other part is about how I don’t always trust future me. I want to make sure she sees both this and the move through and the structure of the Patreon will help me better plan both. I’m going to make every part of this as beautiful as I can, because you deserve beauty and I do too.

That’s another reminder. Write it down. In a year we can both come back here and see how we’ve done with our remembering.